poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

We all die anyway, and alone.

thanks, Andrew. that's quite an insight. i trust that you considered mass suicide before coming to that conclusion?

it would be very easy to believe that this poem was written about sylvia plath, or even about his second wife assia wevill, who also commited suicide (but took thier baby with her.) but infact, this poem is about neither woman. ted remained silent about sylvia plath right up until birthday letters, and this was actually published in 'Lupercal.' after sylvia's death, ted remained friends with aurelia (sylvia's mother.) this poem is written about when she fell ill and he visited her in hospital. this poem addresses his grief and remorse, and is his explanation of how his relationship between sylvia went wrong. but of course, no one recognized it as such at the time it was published.