I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
—-
Before I begin writing, I feel pretty seriously that using a poem by Sylvia Plath is a cop-out because I am a young woman (who has been reading Plath since the age of 12) and she’s become such a “romantic” figure. I hate that and as I’ve been exposed to more and more poetry, the less I like her work. But as I’ve mentioned, I’m a big fan of villanelle. This along with Dylan Thomas’s, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” are my favorite examples of the form. This is also one of the times in Plath’s work where she starts out using a form and continues to use it unlike her poem “Full Fathom Five” which starts out in terza rima and somewhere becomes something completely different.
