Mirror by Sylvia Plath I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful-- The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness seperate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Soft Snow by William Blake I walked abroad in a snowy day; I asked that soft snow with me to play; She played and she melted in all her prime, And the winter called it a dreadful crime.
Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost I have been one acquianted with the night. I have walked out in rain--and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat. And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-by; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was niether wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.
Spinster by Sylvia Plath Now this particular girl During a ceremonious April walk With her latest suitor Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck By the birds' irregular babel And the leaves' litter.
By this tumult afflicted, she Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air, His gait stary uneven THrough a rank wilderness of fren and flower. She judged petals in disarry, The whole season sloven.
How she longed for winter then!-- Scrupulosly austere in its order Of white and black Ice and rock, each sentiment within border, And heart's frosty discipline Exact as a snowflake.
But here--a burgeoning Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits Into vulgar motley-- A treason not to be borne. Let idiots Reel giddy in bedlam spring: She withdrew neatly.
And round her house she set Such a barricade of barb and check Against mutinous weather As no mere insurgent man could hope to break W
ith curse, fist, threat Or love, either.
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at the close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Sun Rising by John Donne Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus. Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong Why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long; If her eyes have not blinded thine, look, and tomorrow late, tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou leftst them, or here lie with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.
She's all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honor's mimi
c, all wealth alchemy. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus. Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.
