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Sylvia Plath - Pheasant

You said you would kill it this morning.
Do not kill it. It startles me still,
The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing

Through the uncut grass on the elm's hill.
It is something to own a pheasant,
Or just to be visited at all.

I am not mystical: it isn't
As if I thought it had a spirit.
It is simply in its element.

That gives it a kingliness, a right.
The print of its big foot last winter,
The trail-track, on the snow in our court

The wonder of it, in that pallor,
Through crosshatch of sparrow and starling.
Is it its rareness, then? It is rare.

But a dozen would be worth having,
A hundred, on that hill-green and red,
Crossing and recrossing: a fine thing!

It is such a good shape, so vivid.
It's a little cornucopia.
It unclaps, brown as a leaf, and loud,

Settles in the elm, and is easy.
It was sunning in the narcissi.
I trespass stupidly. Let be, let be.

Added: on January 17th, 2007 at 8:41 PM | Viewed: 3592 times | Comments and analysis of Pheasant by Sylvia Plath Comments (1)


Pheasant - Comments and Information

Poet: Sylvia Plath
Poem: Pheasant
Poem of the Day: Jul 22 2007

Comment 1 of 1, added on January 17th, 2007 at 8:41 PM.

This poem is about Plath and her husband Ted Hughes. It was written just one year before her death and so I think that it conveys quite well her emotions at the time.

Rudo from Ireland

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