“The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole---
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.”

—  Sylvia Plath

Source: The Collected Poems

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, pee…" by Sylvia Plath?
Sylvia Plath photo
Sylvia Plath 342
American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932–1963

Related quotes

Yann Martel photo

“Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

On Death and Dying (1969)

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“The average man looks up at night And sees thousands and thousands, of twinkling stars, Each different from the others. But a man of wisdom and achievement, Perceives the one light, Behind the dark dome of the night-sky, Whose incandescence peeps at us, Through all the holes in the night-dome!!”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

José Martí photo

“All is beautiful and unceasing,
all is music and reason,
and all, like diamond,
is carbon first, then light.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

I (Yo soy un hombre sincero) as translated by Esther Allen in José Martí : Selected Writings (2002), p. 275
Simple Verses (1891)

“maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

“The sun is nice but it lights things up so much that you can't see very far… The night time is better. It stretches your soul to the stars.”

Fynn (1919–1999) British writer

Source: Mister God, This is Anna

Lin Huiyin photo

“The moon is still bright;
The lights below the hills are still on;
The sky is still full of stars
Hanging like dreams.”

Lin Huiyin (1904–1955) Chinese architect and writer

(zh-CN) 一样是月明，
一样是隔山灯火，
满天的星
只使人不见，
梦似的挂起。
"Do Not Throw Away" (《别丢掉》), translated by Michelle Yeh in A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women (University of Iowa Press, 2002), p. 41
Variant translation:
The moon is still so bright;
Beyond the hills the lamp sheds the same light.
The sky besprinkled with star on star,
But I do not know where you are.
It seems
You hang above like dreams.
Xu Yuanchong, Vanished Springs: The Life and Love of a Chinese Intellectual (Vantage Press, 1999), pp. 44–45

“On that far horizon the Sandia Mountains stand behind their outliers in receding gradations of gray or blue or violet, paper cutouts against the lighter sky, vanishing into night when the lights of the city come on. Then the stars look down and the air is sweet with piñon smoke as centuries-old nut-bearing trees are burned for the momentary pleasure of those who, unlike the native peoples, never think of the food the trees produce.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Gibbon's Decline & Fall (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 41)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Our sky has lost another star,
The earth has claimed its own,
And into dread eternity
A glorious one is gone.
He who could give departed things
So much of light and breath,
He is himself now with the past —
Gone forth from life to death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(29th September 1832) On the death of Sir Walter Scott
The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Algernon Charles Swinburne photo

“Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

Second chorus, lines 1-12.
Atalanta in Calydon (1865)
Context: Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.

Related topics