Ebb

“Sonnet V: If I should learn, in some quite casual way” by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917)

As with “Ebb,” this sonnet bonds love to death and danger, with the speaker imagining finding out from a newspaper article that her lover has died. This sonnet shows the speaker's restraint from expressing her grief in public; instead, she focuses on distracting herself from this shocking and private loss by feigning interest in other sections of the newspaper. The imagined death of a lover might also symbolize grieving the death or end of a relationship, much like how the speaker in "Ebb" feels as if her heart, her love, has died.

“Daddy” by Sylvia Plath (1962)

Sylvia Plath’s poem also presents love in a precarious, dangerous state. In Millay’s “Ebb,” the violence is subtle and implied with words like “edge” and “ledge.” In “Daddy,” the harm is explicit with Plath tying love to an authoritarian father or patriarchal figure. In both poems, love deforms the speakers’ hearts. Plath says the father figure “Bit my pretty red heart in two.” However, in Plath’s poem, the speaker isn’t helpless and has the will to exact revenge. Additionally, like Millay’s poem, Plath pays attention to sound and, despite her harrowing subject matter, creates a playful melody.

“The Big Heart” by Anne Sexton (1975)

Unlike the heart in “Ebb,” the heart in Sexton’s poem is formidable and “wide as a watermelon.” The heart isn’t diminished but filled with “so much abundance.” As in “Ebb,” the heart is a figure for the speaker and her ability to love and form deep, meaningful bonds. At the same time, the heart remains dangerous and somewhat uncontrollable, as Sexton’s speaker describes it as “spurting out,” “bleeding on” people,” and “messing up” their clothes. While the heart “ebbs” in Millay’s poem, the heart grows bigger and more monstrous in Sexton’s poem. Like Millay, Sexton’s speaker uses figurative language to convey her giant, unwieldy capacity for love.