Caryatids - 1
What were those caryadits bearing? It was the first poem of yours I had seen. It was the only poem you ever write That I disliked through the eyes of a stranger. It seemed thin and brittle, the lines cold. Like the theorem of a trap, a deadfall - set. I saw that. And the trap unsprung, empty. I felt no interest. No stirring Of omen. In those days I coerced Oracular assurance In my favour out of every sign. So missed everything In the white, blindfolded, rigid faces Of those women. I felt their frailty, yes: Friable, burnt aluminium. Fragile, like the mantle of a gas-lamp. But made nothing Of that massive, starless, mid-fall, falling Heaven of granite stopped, as if in a snapshot, By their hair.
This poem, together with Caryatids 2, appears early in Hughes' collection “Birthday Letters”, and relates to the period of his life before he met Sylvia Plath.
Caryatids - 1 - meaning Summary
Belated Recognition of Warning
The speaker recalls first reading a poem by someone close to him and failing to understand its force. He saw only the caryatids' apparent frailty and the poem's coldness, because he was seeking reassuring signs for himself. Looking back, he recognizes that the women supporting a falling stone sky embodied a threatening weight and disaster he had missed. The poem turns private misreading into belated recognition.
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