Years Lyrics
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.
O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.
What I love is
The piston in motion . . .
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
There merciless churn.
And you, great Stasis . . .
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful
God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.
About
In this poem Plath sees the passing of the years from two perspectives. Firstly, she presents an indifferent God and claims that ‘Eternity bores me…’ , unusually so as in her other poems — like Lady Lazarus, Daddy etc — God is male and violent. Here he is the ‘great Stasis’ in ‘vacuus black’ and she is ‘bored’ by him.
Motion, however, is positive. The ‘piston in motion’ and the ‘hooves of the horses’ and their ‘merciless churn’ have greater appeal for Plath. She ends in the final couplet with an affirmation of movement and, ironically, vigorous future life.
Sylvia Plath was ambivalent about religion throughout her life, as is evident in this poem.
Structure
The poem comprises four stanzas of ten, five, eight and two lines each. There is no regular rhyme scheme and the lines are of irregular length.
Language and Imagery
Plath uses a range of imagery to convey the opposing themes of a static god and movement in the guise of rapidly passing years. Horses are a frequently used device in Plath’s poetry to express freedom and release.
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