Recantation
'Tea leaves I've given up, And that crooked line On the queen's palm Is no more my concern. On my black pilgrimage This moon-pocked crystal ball Will break before it help; Rather than croak out What's to come, My darling ravens are flown. 'Forswear those freezing tricks of sight And all else I've taught Against the flower in the blood: Not wealth nor wisdom stands Above the simple vein, The straight mouth. Go to your greenhorn youth Before time ends And do good With your white hands."
Recantation - fact Summary
From Ariel: a Renunciation
The speaker renounces occult practices, prophetic speech, and earlier poetic postures, abandoning tea leaves, palm-reading and crystal-ball certainties. She rejects learned “tricks of sight” and exhorts a return to youthful innocence and simple bodily truths. The poem registers disillusionment and a withdrawal from previous methods of foretelling or control, reflecting Sylvia Plath's struggles with mental health and a decisive shift in tone found in Ariel.
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