Poem by Sylvia Plath

Departure

The figs on the fig tree in the yard are green;
Green, also, the grapes on the green vine
Shading the brickred porch tiles.
The money’s run out.

How nature, sensing this, compounds her bitters.
Ungifted, ungrieved, our leavetaking.
The sun shines on unripe corn.
Cats play in the stalks.

Retrospect shall not soften such penury —
Sun’s brass, the moon’s steely patinas,
The leaden slag of the world —
But always expose

The scraggy rock spit shielding the town’s blue bay
Against which the brunt of outer sea
Beats, is brutal endlessly.
Gull-fouled, a stone hut

Bares its low lintel to corroding weathers:
Across the jut of ochreous rock
Goats shamble, morose, rank-haired,
To lick the sea-salt.

1. Poppies in October
2. Eavesdropper
3. Cut
4. Winter Landscape, with Rooks
5. Prospect

Henry Van Dyke Departure ("Oh, why are you shining so bright, big Sun")

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