Sylvia Plath

Although each of the poems in question (You’re, Morning Song, By Candlelight, Nick and the Candlestick and Mary’s Song) focuses on the relationship between mother and child, the emotions dealt with in each poem vary quite incredibly. Each poem appears differently on the page: You’re and By Candlelight are written in nine-line stanzas, the two poems having two and four respectively, while Morning song, Nick and the Candlestick and Mary’s Song …

…see clearly what lies ahead. The tone is rather morbid, with many references to death and the horrible events of the second world war (“the cicatrix of Poland, burnt out/ Germany”.) Alongside the glorification of her child, she also acknowledges its vulnerability and isolation: “the high/ Precipice/ That emptied one man into space”. She appreciates its significance as well as accepting the fact that like everyone else, it will eventually be killed by the world.