Mayday: two came to field in such wise :
`A daisied mead', each said to each,
So were they one; so sought they couch,
Across barbed stile, through flocked brown cows.
`No pitchforked farmer, please,' she said;
`May cockcrow guard us safe,' said he;
By blackthorn thicket, flower spray
They pitched their coats, come to green bed.
Below: a fen where water stood;
Aslant: their hill of stinging nettle;
Then, honor-bound, mute grazing cattle;
Above: leaf-wraithed white air, white cloud.
All afternoon these lovers lay
Until the sun turned pale from warm,
Until sweet wind changed tune, blew harm :
Cruel nettles stung her angles raw.
Rueful, most vexed, that tender skin
Should accept so fell a wound,
He stamped and cracked stalks to the ground
Which had caused his dear girl pain.
Now he goes from his rightful road
And, under honor, will depart;
While she stands burning, venom-girt,
In wait for sharper smart to fade.
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Her talent was immense and her subjects diverse. But her style always remained the same, the Sylvia spark was evident in everything she wrote.
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Sylvia Plath is truly amazing, and it is a great great shame about her untimely death. However, without the huge amounts of emotion that lead to her suicide, then perhaps her poetry would not have been quite so stunning. She, and Hughes, are some of the best contemporary (fading into history) poets the world has seen in print. I thoroughly recommend reading her work; and the poem above just illustrates how talented she was.
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