Lament
Lament - meaning Summary
Loss and Defiance
Plath's "Lament" mourns a father taken by a repeated, enigmatic image of a "sting of bees." The poem casts him as an imposing, mythic figure—defiant of gods, weather, and death—while the speaker oscillates between grief, awe, and anger. Repetition of the fatal phrase and grand, violent imagery emphasize both the shock of loss and the speaker's complex admiration for a man who seemed to scorn mortal limits.
Read Complete AnalysesThe sting of bees took away my father who walked in a swarming shroud of wings and scorned the tick of the falling weather. Lightning licked in a yellow lather but missed the mark with snaking fangs: the sting of bees too away my father. Trouncing the sea like a ragin bather, he rode the flood in a pride of prongs and scorned the tick of the falling weather. A scowl of sun struck down my mother, tolling her grave with golden gongs, but the sting of bees took away my father. He counted the guns of god a bother, laughed at the ambush of angels' tongues, and scorned the tick of the falling weather. O ransack the four winds and find another man who can mangle the grin of kings: the sting of bees took away my father who scorned the tick of the falling weather.
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