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  • By Sylvia Plath: Lorelei

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    Filipe Celes Rocha
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    The speaker hears a haunting song coming from the river at night, troubling the stillness. The song is sung by mysterious female figures rising from the water, their limbs heavy and hair heavier than marble. Their song promises a world that is more full and clear than can be experienced on land. However, their voices also bear a burden too heavy for mortal ears and threaten to derange the ordinary order. Their silence would be even worse than their maddening song. The speaker sees the goddesses deep within the flowing silver of the river and wishes to be ferried down to them.

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    Sylvia

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    The speaker hears a haunting song coming from the river at night, troubling the stillness. The song is sung by mysterious female figures rising from the water, their limbs heavy and hair heavier than marble. Their song promises a world that is more full and clear than can be experienced on land. However, their voices also bear a burden too heavy for mortal ears and threaten to derange the ordinary order. Their silence would be even worse than their maddening song. The speaker sees the goddesses deep within the flowing silver of the river and wishes to be ferried down to them.

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    9 views2 pages

    By Sylvia Plath: Lorelei

    Uploaded by

    Filipe Celes Rocha
    The speaker hears a haunting song coming from the river at night, troubling the stillness. The song is sung by mysterious female figures rising from the water, their limbs heavy and hair heavier than marble. Their song promises a world that is more full and clear than can be experienced on land. However, their voices also bear a burden too heavy for mortal ears and threaten to derange the ordinary order. Their silence would be even worse than their maddening song. The speaker sees the goddesses deep within the flowing silver of the river and wishes to be ferried down to them.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 2

    Lorelei

    by Sylvia Plath

    It is no night to drown in:

    A full moon, river lapsing

    Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

    The blue water-mists dropping

    Scrim after scrim like fishnets

    Though fishermen are sleeping,

    The massive castle turrets

    Doubling themselves in a glass

    All stillness. Yet these shapes float

    Up toward me, troubling the face

    Of quiet. From the nadir

    They rise, their limbs ponderous

    With richness, hair heavier

    Than sculptured marble. They sing

    Of a world more full and clear

    Than can be. Sisters, your song

    Bears a burden too weighty

    For the whorled ear's listening

    Here, in a well-steered country,

    Under a balanced ruler.

    Deranging by harmony
    Beyond the mundane order,

    Your voices lay siege. You lodge

    On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

    Promising sure harborage;

    By day, descant from borders

    Of hebetude, from the ledge

    Also of high windows. Worse

    Even than your maddening

    Song, your silence. At the source

    Of your ice-hearted calling-

    Drunkenness of the great depths.

    O river, I see drifting

    Deep in your flux of silver

    Those great goddesses of peace.

    Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

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