You’re Lyrics
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 Fool's Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.
Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our travelled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.
About
Sylvia Plath had two children, Frieda born in 1960 and Nicholas born in 1962. This poem describes the joy, fear and anticipation of pregnancy and will chime with women who have been through the experience of having children. It is heartening to know that there were times when Sylvia Plath was happy, given her battles with depression.
Structure
Unlike Plath’s usual organised method of two, three, four or five line stanzas, she chose here two stanzas of nine lines each, possibly signifying the nine months of pregnancy and, because it was written before the birth of her son, the second of her two children.
Language and Imagery
Plath uses her usual concise, dense and complex imagery. Here the ideas are wide-ranging, taking the reader on imaginary journeys to Australia and Mexico, and using vegetable and animal imagery to describe her unborn foetus. Even so, unlike some of her more obscure poems, this is relatively accessible and understandable.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 1.Morning Song
- 2.The Couriers
- 3.Sheep in Fog
- 5.Lady Lazarus
- 6.Tulips
- 7.Cut
- 8.Elm
- 11.Berck-Plage
- 12.Ariel
- 13.Death & Co.
- 14.Lesbos
- 16.Gulliver
- 17.Getting There
- 18.Medusa
- 21.Mary’s Song
- 23.The Rival
- 24.Daddy
- 25.You’re
- 26.Fever 103°
- 27.The Bee Meeting
- 29.Stings
- 30.The Swarm
- 31.Wintering
- 32.The Hanging Man
- 33.Little Fugue
- 34.Years
- 36.Totem
- 37.Paralytic
- 38.Balloons
- 39.Poppies in July
- 40.Kindness
- 41.Contusion
- 42.Edge
- 43.Words