Great Poem: Ted Hughes's "Perfect Light"

Ted Hughes had quite a rough life. I know there are feminists out there who would accuse him of murder because of his infidelity toward Sylvia Plath and her subsequent suicide. This, I think, is insane. Plath had attempted suicide before she even knew Hughes and had obvious emotional problems.

Anyway, after Plath committed suicide, 6 years later, Hughes second wife committed suicide in the same way: by sticking her head in an oven. Two spouses committing suicide? That's not easy to deal with.

The poem below is about a picture Hughes took of Sylvia Plath with her daughter and son. It's striking not only its bare honesty about his relationship with Plath-- something he never discussed publicly-- but because of its intense yet simple imagery. Just pay attention to the image of the daffodil. It's brilliant.

Perfect Light
by Ted Hughes

There you are, in all your innocence,
Sitting among your daffodils, as in a picture
Posed as for the title: 'Innocence'.
Perfect light in your face lights it up
Like a daffodil. Like any one of those daffodils
It was to be your only April on earth
Among your daffodils. In your arms,
Like a teddy bear, your new son,
Only a few weeks into his innocence,
Mother and infant, as in the Holy portrait.
And beside you, laughing up at you,
Your daughter, barely two. Like a daffodil
You turn your face down to her, saying something.
Your words were lost in the camera.

And the knowledge
Inside the hill on which you are sitting.
A moated fort hill, bigger than your house,
Failed to reach the picture. While your next moment,
Coming towards you like an infantryman
Returning slowly out of no-man's-land,
Bowed under something, never reached you—
Simply melted into the perfect light.