by Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)
Mirror
Language: English
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful -- The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of the hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Text Authorship:
- by Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963), appears in Crossing the Water, first published 1971 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Phillip Lambro (b. 1935), "Mirror", published 1974 [ soprano and orchestra ], from Four Songs, no. 3 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Elizabeth Walton Vercoe (b. 1941), "Mirror", 1975 [ soprano, piano, vibraphone ], from Herstory I, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2007-08-17
Line count: 18
Word count: 170