On the Plethora of Dryads - Sylvia Plath

Hearing a white saint rave

About a quintessential beauty

Visible only to the paragon heart,

I tried my sight on an apple-tree

That for eccentric knob and wart

Had all my love.

Without meat or drink I sat

Starving my fantasy down

To discover that metaphysical Tree which hid

From my worldling look its brilliant vein

Far deeper in gross wood

Than axe could cut.

But before I might blind sense

To see with the spotless soul,

Each particular quirk so ravished me

Every pock and stain bulked more beautiful

Than flesh of any body

Flawed by love’s prints.

Battle however I would

To break through that patchwork

Of leaves' bicker and whisk in babel tongues,

Streak and mottle of tawn bark,

No visionary lightnings

Pierced my dense lid.

Instead, a wanton fit

Dragged each dazzled sense apart

Surfeiting eye, ear, taste, touch, smell;

Now, snared by this miraculous art,

I ride earth’s burning carrousel

Day in, day out,

And such grit corrupts my eyes

I must watch sluttish dryads twitch

Their multifarious silks in the holy grove

Until no chaste tree but suffers blotch

Under flux of those seductive

Reds, greens, blues.