From the Plath Poem Tinker Jack and The Tidy Wives and the novel The Scarlet Letter, the character of Hester Prynne who I was thinking of as I read the poem.
And also from my great grandfather who I am named for. That is his picture in the avatar... He went through five wives three of them died in childbirth.
I like juxtaposing stuff.
This bit from the novel
"Be it sin or no," said Hester Prynne bitterly, as she still gazed after him, "I hate the man!"
She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days, in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the fire-light of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could have been! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side.
Juxtaposed to the poem.
Come lady, bring that pot
Gone black of polish
And whatever pan this mending master
Should trim back to shape
I'll correct each mar
On Silver dish
And shine that kettle of copper
At your fireside
Bright as blood.
Come lady, bring that face
Fallen from luster
Time's soot in bleared eye
Can be made to glister
For small charge
No form's gone so awry
Crook-back or bandy-leg
But TInker Jack can forge
Beauty from hag
Whatever scath
Fierce fire's wrought
Jack will touch up
And fit for use
What scar's been knocked
Into cracked heart
Jack shall repair
And if there be
Young wives still blithe
Still fair
Whose labor's not yet smoked
Their fine skin sere.
From their white heat
Before he part
Let Jack catch fire.
