The Colossus and Other Poems is a collection of poems by
Sylvia Plath and was published in 1960 by
Faber & Faber (UK) and
HarperCollins (US). The
copyright is still held by
Faber & Faber (UK) &
HarperCollins (US).
The 96 page book is a wonderful taste of
Sylvia Plath's typical work. The collection is a comprehensive overview of her entire life's work. So, you get the entire idea of how she writes in this particular book.
The Colossus
"... Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser.
Scaling little ladders with glue pots and pails of Lysol
I crawl like an ant in mourning
Over the weedy acres of your brow
To mend the immense skull-plates and clear
The bald, white tumuli of your eyes.
A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered
In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing."
~Sylvia Plath
The book also includes the following titles: