Sylvia Plath

Sonnet to Time

Today we move in jade and cease with garnet
amid the clicking jewelled clocks that mark
our years. Death comes in a casual steel car, yet
we vaunt our days in neon, and scorn the dark.

But outside the diabolic steel of this
most plastic-windowed city, I can hear
the lone wind raving in the gutter, his
voice crying exclusion in my ear.

So cry for the pagan girl left picking olives
beside a sun-blue sea, and mourn the flagon
raised to toast a thousand kings, for all gives
sorrow: weep for the legendary dragon.

Time is a great machine of iron bars
that drains eternally the milk of stars.