What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?
I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking
'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?
Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.
Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'
But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.
I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.
I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,
The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!
It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.
Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed—I do not mind if it is small.
Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,
The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.
I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified
The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,
A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.
I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,
No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.
If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.
But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.
Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million
Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine——-
Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,
Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.
It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center
Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.
Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.
Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death
I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.
There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter
Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.
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Death
From guest aihaii (contact)
The present she wants is death, and for me this is quite apparent and a consistent image throughout the poem. She talks of doing it with discretion, wanting to go whole, for the universe to slide by her side. The veils she speaks of are the efforts undergone to ignore this desire, which ironically are "killing her days".. -
uhh
From guest sam (contact)
can someone explain this poem i do not get it she kind of skips around on subjects -
My understanding of the phrase "let down the veil" is that it is in fact a request to cover things up. It seems to me that the poet has tried to "raise the veil" and uncover something and then realised that sometimes what is beneath is better kept covered.
Hence the lines
Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death
indicate to me that the poet wants to see everything UNLESS what is revealed is the final torment..Death -
The birthday present
From guest Nuggehalli Pankaja (contact)
i could not grasp the inner meaning; So much conflicting thoughts!The undercurrent left me confused;The cry 'Let dow n the veil let down the veil'is a pathetic cry,tearing the veil from face s full of hypocrisy. -
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To me the January Window is a reference to the appearance of frost on the inside of the window. Not solid opaque layers but thin network covering the window as Plath says with a thin translucent layer similar to a thin silk or similar material. In the days of my youth before the joy of central heating this was a common feature when I pulled back my bedroom curtains.
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"O adding machine-"
From guest Richard (contact)
The "O adding machine-" is suggestive of Plath's belief that Hughes has done nothing for her except add to her life by means of children. The apostrophe of the line implies an intonation of bitter contempt for her husband, while the impersonal lexical choice of 'machine' in reference to Hughes, ostensibly suggests the cold nature of their relationship, and particularly of his cold treatment of her in having an affair. -
Obvious to me...
It seems so obvious to me that 'he' is waiting for the moment to end the relationship, and 'she' knows this, expects it-as a present; yet the moment is 'veiled' by ordinary activities. Sort of ignoring the elephant in the room who takes up all the air. She is fully aware of his impending 'annunciation', but he hesitates, and this causes her great pain and frustration, 'let down the veil, let down the veil...I would know you were serious...there would be a birthday...'. The birthday gift however is a knife through the heart and an answer, to her mind, of a solution to her pain. Just my opinion. -
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if you read about Plath you will see she tried to kill herself on a few occasions. in this poem she is speaking of death. and when she put her head in that oven, she finally got her wish. sad, but true...
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isn't plath a genius?
when i can write like that... -
I wondered what silvery thing that she could possibly be describing and longing for. At first I thought a knife, then I thought she might be describing a series of things, and then a mirror, but she used 'mirrory' in her description, so it surely couldn't be that. Then the end came to me as no shock, knowing the suicidal, depressed history of Sylvia Plath. I like how she phrases things. Very eloquently at times, and then blatantly.
Arielle Giselle -
I agree with you on that.. truly sad though, to think that death is what she wanted... with black eye pits.. reminded me of the burners on a stove, after reading her biography I got the perception that this was written while she contemplated her death....I seen her behind the "veil" she kept mentioning, questioning herself.
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Sometimes the smallest falling grain of sand in the hourglass can bruise the heart more than the entry of a knife...Time has a way of killing those with no hope for the future.
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I'm glad there wasn't a car chase.
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Deeply textured and metaphored, a truly admirable piece of work. The veil is a metaphor for a body bag, I think. She is saying - "look! Here I am. Is it what you wanted?"
Or perhaps it is a present to herself. Allowing herself to die. When she steps into the other world, she is pleased with the end result.
So many different ways of looking at this poem.
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Read an essay by a Judith Kroll about the poem. Agreed on the most part. Kroll believed that the present the speaker desired was truth, and that only he(never really explained who, but we coudl easily guess) could give it to her. In the poem death is masking the idea of truth.
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'After all I am alive only by accident.'
That is got to be a truly sad line. I mean to be at the conclusion (whether fiction or not) that their life is an accident by either a failed attempt at an abortion or some other societal discourse and then to be at that conclusion in life - Plath never had a chance I guess.
I thought this to be a bit long, my mind drifted away because it seemed when she wrote this she was trying to get at something but she just dragged the 'voice' of it along so far that it became pointless for me to care at the end.
I find it to be rittled in turmoil. She sounds as if she was a very sad-filled person. The good die young, I reckon.
I liked the beginning and the fact that it finally ended at the end, I probably would have to come back to it and read it again, but I feel my impression would still be the same.
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This speaks to me of the dread of the inexorable passage of years to old age - of the knowledge that the years expect so much and offer little to a mind clouded by pain. I have felt so, at times. She expects nothing but would have the suspense of the waiting over - even for the nothing.
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