Sylvia Plath, "Sheep in Fog"

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.


The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,


Hooves, dolorous bells -
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,


A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.


They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.






This is one of my favorite Sylvia Plath poems. To me, it is a pure, aching expression of despair. I feel sick when I read it, so I know that it's a good poem. Partly, it's her use of sounds, which is particularly exemplary in this poem--"stars/Regard," "O slow," "colour of rust." And the rhythm--the sad, fatalistic staccato of "A flower left out." and "Fields melt my heart." 


The images that only she would think of, as well--hills that "step off." The earth's slow abandonment of the narrator to a heaven that she does not want.