The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
There is probably no poet who could make international news except Ted Hughes, even twelve years after his death.
A new poem was discovered in his papers deposited in the British Library. Part of the series of poems that would eventually become Birthday Letters, this poem, probably written in the 70s, recalls Hughes reaction on hearing of his wife's death. Why he did not include it in Birthday Letters is unclear; but a few poems about Plath were published outside that collection, and this appears to be one that simply did not make the cut. There are several revisions and a typed copy, which usually meant that Hughes considered the poem done.
Again, like Hemingway, Hughes projected a character who was larger than his literature, so he survives in the imagination of the general public and is still newsworthy. Hemingway had a few more positive credits to his public fascination; Hughes' was almost totally negative. He was considered an accomplice in the death of Sylvia Plath. Both men, however, were considered cruel to women and drew the ire of some feminists.
So, these poems, and any more that are out there, continue the story of this doomed couple. Wider audiences no longer care about poetry or poets, but Hughes and Plath, for reasons that are largely salacious and less than savory, hold a place in the public imagination.
One can only hope that people read their work, and don't only ponder their all too human mistakes. Birthday Letters is perhaps one of the greatest efforts of an artist to redefine himself at the end of his career, and at the end of his life. It should be read
