Sylvia Plath - Morning Song
From ZuluNotes - Free Leaving Cert Notes
| English Poem | |
| |
| Sylvia Plath - Morning Song | |
|---|---|
| Subject | English |
| Section | Poetry |
| Paper | 2 |
| Poet | Sylvia Plath |
| On syllabus | 2007, 2008 |
| Note | |
The Poem
- Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
- The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
- Took its place among the elements.
- Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
- In a drafty museum, your nakedness
- Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
- I'm no more your mother
- Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
- Effacement at the wind's hand.
- All night your moth-breath
- Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
- A far sea moves in my ear.
- One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
- In my Victorian nightgown.
- Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
- Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
- Your handful of notes;
- The clear vowels rise like balloons.
Analysis
Attitude of the mother towards the child
From the poem we can see that the mother loves the child immensely. Even from the title the child's crying, a source of irritation for most, is described as a "morning song." We also see that the mother is concerned for the child. The image of a "new statue / In a drafty museum" shows how the mother sees her child as an individual. The word "drafty" shows how she feels that, although she can help her child, she no longer has control over her life. The same concern for the child's safety is conveyed when the mother says "one cry and I stumble from bed" and "your nakedness shadows our safety." The metaphor of the "cloud that distills a mirror" shows us how the mother knows that she will one day die and her daughter will be left to fend for herself, but until then she will do all that she can to keep her child safe "I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear"
