In The Bazaars of Hyderabad by Sarojini Naidu
Richly your wares are displayed. Turbans of crimson and silver, Tunics of purple brocade, Mirrors with panels of amber, Daggers with handles of jade. What do you weigh, O ye vendors? Saffron and lentil and rice. What do you grind, O ye maidens? Sandalwood, henna, and spice. What do you call , O ye pedlars? […]
Transcience by Sarojini Naidu
Dawn will not veil her spleandor for your grief, Nor spring deny their bright, appointed beauty To lotus blossom and ashoka leaf. Nay, do not pine, tho’ life be dark with trouble, Time will not pause or tarry on his way; To-day that seems so long, so strange, so bitter, Will soon be some forgotten […]
Past and Future by Sarojini Naidu
And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to forget Old longings in fulfilling new desires. And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense Expectancy and anguish of suspense, On the dim chamber-threshold . . . lo! he […]
Palanquin Bearers by Sarojini Naidu
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song; She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream, She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream. Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing, We bear her along like a pearl on a string. Softly, O softly we […]
Nightfall In The City Of Hyderabad by Sarojini Naidu
Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote. See the white river that flashes and scintillates, Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates. Hark, from the minaret, how the muezzin’s call Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall. From trellised balconies, languid and luminous Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous. Leisurely […]
Leili by Sarojini Naidu
The fireflies light the soundless panther’s way To tangled paths where shy gazelles are straying, And parrot-plumes outshine the dying day. O soft! the lotus-buds upon the stream Are stirring like sweet maidens when they dream. A caste-mark on the azure brows of Heaven, The golden moon burns sacred, solemn, bright The winds are dancing […]
Indian Weavers by Sarojini Naidu
Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . . Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, We weave the robes of a new-born child. Weavers, weaving at fall of night, Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . . Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green, We weave […]
Indian Dancers by Sarojini Naidu
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night. The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter […]
Indian Dancer by Sarojini Naidu
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night. The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter […]
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace by Sarojini Naidu
And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await The restless sickle of relentless fate. But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born, When from the climbing terraces of corn I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn. What care I for the world’s desire and pride, Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide, The […]
In Praise Of Henna by Sarojini Naidu
Lira! liree! Lira! liree! Hasten, maidens, hasten away To gather the leaves of the henna-tree. Send your pitchers afloat on the tide, Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old, Grind them in mortars of amber and gold, The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree. A kokila called from a henna-spray: Lira! liree! Lira! liree! […]
Autumn Song by Sarojini Naidu
The sunset hangs on a cloud; A golden storm of glittering sheaves, Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, The wild wind blows in a cloud. Hark to a voice that is calling To my heart in the voice of the wind: My heart is weary and sad and alone, For its dreams like the […]
You’re by Sylvia Plath
Clownlike, happiest on your hands, Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, Gilled like a fish. A common-sense Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode. Wrapped up in yourself like a spool, Trawling your dark, as owls do. Mute as a turnip from the Fourth Of July to All Fools’ Day, O high-riser, my little loaf. Vague as […]
Yaddo : The Grand Manor by Sylvia Plath
Woodsmoke and a distant loudspeaker Filter into this clear Air, and blur. The red tomato’s in, the green bean; The cook lugs a pumpkin From the vine For pies. The fir tree’s thick with grackles. Gold carp loom in the pools. A wasp crawls Over windfalls to sip cider-juice. Guests in the studios Muse, compose. […]
Winter Landscape, With Rooks by Sylvia Plath
Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone, plunges headlong into that black pond where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan floats chaste as snow, taunting the clouded mind which hungers to haul the white reflection down. The austere sun descends above the fen, an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look longer on this landscape […]
Waking In Winter by Sylvia Plath
I can taste the tin of the sky — the real tin thing. Winter dawn is the color of metal, The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves. All night I have dreamed of destruction, annihilations — An assembly-line of cut throats, and you and I Inching off in the gray Chevrolet, drinking the green […]
Two Views Of Withens by Sylvia Plath
Above whorled, spindling gorse, Sheepfoot-flattened grasses, Stone wall and ridgepole rise Prow-like through blurs Of fog in that hinterland few Hikers get to: Home of uncatchable Sage hen and spry rabbit, Where second wind, hip boot Help over hill And hill, and through peaty water. I found bare moor, A colorless weather, And the House […]
Two Sisters Of Persephone by Sylvia Plath
Two girls there are : within the house One sits; the other, without. Daylong a duet of shade and light Plays between these. In her dark wainscoted room The first works problems on A mathematical machine. Dry ticks mark time As she calculates each sum. At this barren enterprise Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes, Root-pale […]
Tinker Jack And The Tidy Wives by Sylvia Plath
‘Come lady, bring that pot Gone black of polish And whatever pan this mending master Should trim back to shape. I’ll correct each mar On silver dish, And shine that kettle of copper At your fireside Bright as blood. ‘Come lady, bring that face Fallen from luster. Time’s soot in bleared eye Can be made […]
The Trial Of A Man by Sylvia Plath
The ordinary milkman brought that dawn Of destiny, delivered to the door In square hermetic bottles, while the sun Ruled decree of doomsday on the floor. The morning paper clocked the headline hour You drank your coffee lke original sin, And at the jet-plane anger of God’s roar Got up to let the suave blue […]
The Swarm by Sylvia Plath
Somebody is shooting at something in our town – A dull pom, pom in the Sunday street. Jealousy can open the blood, It can make black roses. Who are the shooting at? It is you the knives are out for At Waterloo, Waterloo, Napoleon, The hump of Elba on your short back, And the snow, […]
The Sleepers by Sylvia Plath
No map traces the street Where those two sleepers are. We have lost track of it. They lie as if under water In a blue, unchanging light, The French window ajar Curtained with yellow lace. Through the narrow crack Odors of wet earth rise. The snail leaves a silver track; Dark thickets hedge the house. […]
The Shrike by Sylvia Plath
When night comes black Such royal dreams beckon this man As lift him apart From his earth-wife’s side To wing, sleep-feathered, The singular air, While she, envious bride, Cannot follow after, but lies With her blank brown eyes starved wide, Twisting curses in the tangled sheet With taloned fingers, Shaking in her skull’s cage The […]
The Rival by Sylvia Plath
If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression Of something beautiful, but annihilating. Both of you are great light borrowers. Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected, And your first gift is making stone out of everything. I wake to a mausoleum; you are here, Ticking your fingers […]
The Ravaged Face by Sylvia Plath
Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged face Parades the marketplace, lurid and stricken By some unutterable chagrin, Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen nose. Two pinlegs stagger underneath the mass. Grievously purpled, mouth skewered on a groan, Past keeping to the house, past all discretion — Myself, myself! — obscene, lugubrious. Better the flat leer […]
The Rabbit Catcher by Sylvia Plath
It was a place of force- The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair, Tearing off my voice, and the sea Blinding me with its lights, the lives of the dead Unreeling in it, spreading like oil. I tasted the malignity of the gorse, Its black spikes, The extreme unction of its yellow […]
The Queen’s Complaint by Sylvia Plath
In ruck and quibble of courtfolk This giant hulked, I tell you, on her scene With hands like derricks, Looks fierce and black as rooks; Why, all the windows broke when he stalked in. Her dainty acres he ramped through And used her gentle doves with manners rude; I do not know What fury urged […]
The Princess And The Goblins by Sylvia Plath
(1) From fabrication springs the spiral stair up which the wakeful princess climbs to find the source of blanching light that conjured her to leave her bed of fever and ascend a visionary ladder toward the moon whose holy blue anoints her injured hand. With finger bandaged where the waspish pin flew from the intricate […]
The Night Dances by Sylvia Plath
A smile fell in the grass. Irretrievable! And how will your night dances Lose themselves. In mathematics? Such pure leaps and spirals — Surely they travel The world forever, I shall not entirely Sit emptied of beauties, the gift Of your small breath, the drenched grass Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies. Their flesh bears […]
The Moon And The Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath
“This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary. The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue. The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God, Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility. Fumy spiritious mists inhabit this place Separated from my house by a row […]
The Manor Garden by Sylvia Plath
The fountains are dry and the roses over. Incense of death. Your day approaches. The pears fatten like little buddhas. A blue mist is dragging the lake. You move through the era of fishes, The smug centuries of the pig- Head, toe and finger Come clear of the shadow. History Nourishes these broken flutings, These […]
The Jailer by Sylvia Plath
My night sweats grease his breakfast plate. The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position With the same trees and headstones. Is that all he can come up with, The rattler of keys? I have been drugged and raped. Seven hours knocked out of my right mind Into a black sack Where I […]
The Hermit At Outermost House by Sylvia Plath
Sky and sea, horizon-hinged Tablets of blank blue, couldn’t, Clapped shut, flatten this man out. The great gods, Stone-Head, Claw-Foot Winded by much rock-bumping And claw-threat, realized that. For what, then, had they endured Dourly the long hots and colds, Those old despots, if he sat Laugh-shaken on his doorsill, Backbone unbendable as Timbers of […]
The Hanging Man by Sylvia Plath
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me. I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet. The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid : A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket. A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree. If he were I, […]
The Great Carbuncle by Sylvia Plath
We came over the moor-top Through air streaming and green-lit, Stone farms foundering in it, Valleys of grass altering In a light neither dawn Nor nightfall, out hands, faces Lucent as percelain, the earth’s Claim and weight gone out of them. Some such transfiguring moved The eight pilgrims towards its source- Toward the great jewel: […]
The Goring by Sylvia Plath
Arena dust rusted by four bulls’ blood to a dull redness, The afternoon at a bad end under the crowd’s truculence, The ritual death each time botched among dropped capes, ill-judged stabs, The strongest will seemed a will towards ceremony. Obese, dark- Faced in his rich yellows, tassels, pompons, braid, the picador Rode out against […]
The Glutton by Sylvia Plath
He, hunger-strung, hard to slake, So fitted is for my black luck (With heat such as no man could have And yet keep kind) That all merit’s in being meat Seasoned how he’d most approve; Blood’s broth Filched by his hand, Choice wassail makes, cooked hot, Cupped quick to mouth; Though prime parts cram each […]
The Ghost’s Leavetaking by Sylvia Plath
Enter the chilly no-man’s land of about Five o’clock in the morning, the no-color void Where the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lot Of sulfurous dreamscapes and obscure lunar conundrums Which seemed, when dreamed, to mean so profoundly much, Gets ready to face the ready-made creation Of chairs and bureaus and sleep-twisted sheets. This […]
The Fearful by Sylvia Plath
This man makes a pseudonym And crawls behind it like a worm. This woman on the telephone Says she is a man, not a woman. The mask increases, eats the worm, Stripes for mouth and eyes and nose, The voice of the woman hollows– More and more like a dead one, Worms in the glottal […]
The Eye-Mote by Sylvia Plath
Blameless as daylight I stood looking At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown, Tails streaming against the green Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking White chapel pinnacles over the roofs, Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves Steadily rooted though they were all flowing Away to the left like reeds in a sea […]