tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11560235.post113371768608832703..comments2024-01-26T10:25:48.047-08:00Comments on shrimplate: All Doing Stuffshrimplatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08347542266047278227noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11560235.post-1134369843181280822005-12-11T22:44:00.000-08:002005-12-11T22:44:00.000-08:00Cottage Street, 1953Framed in her phoenix fire-scr...<A HREF="http://www.sylviaplathforum.com/forum-poems/46.html" REL="nofollow">Cottage Street, 1953</A><BR/><BR/><I>Framed in her phoenix fire-screen, Edna Ward<BR/>Bends to the tray of Canton, pouring tea<BR/>For frightened Mrs.Plath, then, turning toward<BR/>The pale, slumped daughter, and my wife, and me,<BR/><BR/>Asks if we would prefer it weak or strong.<BR/>Will we have milk or lemon, she enquires?<BR/>The visit seems already strained and long.<BR/>Each in his turn, we tell her our desires.<BR/><BR/>It is my office to exemplify<BR/>The published poet in his happiness,<BR/>Thus cheering Sylvia, who has wished to die:<BR/>But half-ashamed, and impotent to bless,<BR/><BR/>I am a stupid life-guard who has found<BR/>Swept to the shallows by the tide, a girl<BR/>Who, far from shore, has been immensely drowned,<BR/>And stares through water now with eyes of pearl.<BR/><BR/>How deep is her refusal, and how slight<BR/>The genteel chat whereby we recommend<BR/>Life, of a summer afternoon, despite<BR/>The brewing dusk which hints that it may end.<BR/><BR/>And Edna Ward shall die in fifteen years,<BR/>After her eight-and-eighty summers of<BR/>Such grace and courage as permit no tears,<BR/>The thin hand reaching out, the last word love,<BR/><BR/>Outliving Sylvia, who, condemned to live,<BR/>Shall study for a decade, as she must,<BR/>To state at last her brilliant negative<BR/>In poems free and helpless and unjust.</I><BR/><BR/><B>Richard Wilbur</B>dorsanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17360076073314764844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11560235.post-1133747873121773682005-12-04T17:57:00.000-08:002005-12-04T17:57:00.000-08:00Happy Blackberrying Shrimplate!Be Well!Happy Blackberrying Shrimplate!<BR/><BR/>Be Well!Bethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05740998890360811044noreply@blogger.com