For Plath.

 I think of how

Long and winding

Without you my life

Has been,

Though I have

Only just reached eighteen.

I glance through

The graveyards

And smile. How long my friends

And I have been apart.

Though centuries ago they

Received their last birthday card.

I turn to my friends:

Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Keats

And how the cycle of life

Repeats and repeats;

And now only can I

Into their work retreat.

Many have I loved

And been loved by in return

Though only for Sylvia

In passion did I burn

And as she is gone, never will I

Her affections earn.

Oh! Sylvia

Your illness wrapped round

Like vines and that man

To whom you were bound

By marriage and impure love.

I wish you I had found.

But we are years

Too late.

For you are dead.

I love thee, Sylvia, wait,

Do not cast yourself

Into the oven of hate.

My darling,

You secured

The windows and

The doors,

So that your young ones

May live forevermore.

Why couldn’t you

Be patient, my dear?

We would have found each

Other, without fear

And I would have cared for you

And kept you near.

Oh! Sylvia,

Yet you did die.

You need not even

Attempt nor try

To be the tragic heroine in

Mine and society’s eye.

Sylvia, my love,

You are her. 

l.s.