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  | previous  = "[[Song for a Summer's Day]]"
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  | notes      = Poem composed in 1956, entry 13 in ''[[The Collected Poems]]'', edited by Ted Hughes
  | notes      = Poem composed in 1956, entry 13 in ''[[The Collected Poems]]'', edited by Ted Hughes. Originally published in ''[[The Colossus and Other Poems]]'' (London, 1960 and New York City, 1962).
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{{poem-on|Two Sisters of Persephone}}<poem>
{{poem-on|Two Sisters of Persephone}}<poem>

Revision as of 02:47, 9 March 2015

"Song for a Summer's Day" Two Sisters of Persephone
written by Sylvia Plath
"Vanity Fair"
Poem composed in 1956, entry 13 in The Collected Poems, edited by Ted Hughes. Originally published in The Colossus and Other Poems (London, 1960 and New York City, 1962). Link to further information



Two Sisters of Persephone


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 her meager frame.

Bronzed as earth, the second lies,
Hearing ticks blown gold
Like pollen on bright air. Lulled
Near a bed of poppies,

She sees how their red silk flare
Of petaled blood
Burns open to sun's blade.
On that green altar

Freely become sun's bride, the latter
Grows quick with seed.
Grass-couched in her labor's pride,
She bears a king. Turned bitter

And sallow as any lemon,
The other, wry virgin to the last,
Goes graveward with flesh laid waste,
Worm-husbanded, yet no woman.


1956