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“The Night Dances” Introduction
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The American poet Sylvia Plath wrote "The Night Dances" in 1962, not long after the birth of her second child. The poem contrasts the beautiful yet fleeting nature of human existence with the infinite darkness of the cosmos. The speaker lovingly watches their child's playful nighttime movements (the "night dances" of the title), all the while sensing that such tender moments are insignificant against the backdrop of a cold, empty universe. The speaker wonders why they've been blessed with these moments of joy and love, knowing that they will inevitably, and too quickly, be lost. The poem was published in 1965 as part of the posthumous collection, Ariel. Plath's husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes said that "The Night Dances" was inspired by their son's twirling movement in his crib.
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“The Night Dances” Summary
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iThe speaker begins by saying that a smile has slipped down into the grass and is now gone for good.
This prompts the speaker to wonder when their child's playful evening antics will slip away. Will they be lost, the speaker wonders, to the world of numbers and figures?
The child's perfect jumps and twirls certainly must echo endlessly across the earth.
The speaker won't be entirely drained of "beauties" when this happens (perhaps referring to what will happen after their child grows up and away from them, or perhaps referring to the sense of being "emptied" by pregnancy).
Instead, the speaker will still have the blessing that is their child's breath and the scent of their sleeping body, which the speaker associates with wet grass and lilies.
These lilies, however, aren't really anything like the child. The calla lily is austere and self-important.
The tiger lily, meanwhile, is flashy and exuberant, its dotted, bright orange petals opening seductively.
Switching gears, the speaker then zooms out to describe comets flying across the enormous expanse of space.
Space is immensely cold and empty, devoid of memory. In light of this, the child's little movements seem to chip away.
These gestures, filled with human warmth, soon lose their rosy glow, their light bleeding and peeling away amid the dark oblivion of the universe (much like a comet's reddish light seems to leave streaks across the sky behind it and then disappear).
With this in mind, the speaker asks why they've been blessed with such bright moments of joy with their child, which the speaker compares to lamps or planets.
Such blessings settle like crystals of snow on every part of the speaker's body.
Upon making contact, they dissolve and disappear.
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“The Night Dances” Themes
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The Fleeting Nature of Life
“The Night Dances” explores the relationship between humanity and the universe, contrasting finite human lives with the cold, infinite space of the cosmos. Addressing a beloved baby, the speaker thinks about how the child will one day stop performing the wiggly “night dances” that the speaker so enjoys. (Plath’s husband, fellow poet Ted Hughes, said that the poem was inspired by their baby son’s movements in his crib.) Imagining this loss, the speaker can’t help but reflect that all human “gestures” are temporary, and they mourn the fact that an individual life is fleeting and insignificant within the vast “forgetfulness” of space. The speaker thus struggles to reconcile the “blessing” of the beautiful moments they are experiencing with the fact that these moments—and all such blessings—so quickly end.
The poem begins with an image of loss, saying that a “smile fell in the grass” and is now “[i]rretrievable.” It’s not clear whose smile this is, but this image immediately suggests that moments of happiness are fleeting. Indeed, no sooner has the speaker mentioned this lost smile that they wonder how their child’s delightful “night dances [will] / Lose themselves.” In other words, the speaker knows that someday their child will no longer perform these cute nighttime wiggles. Like everything else, this little habit will be lost. And that will be only the first of many losses: the speaker and the child themselves, the poem implies, will also someday die.
At first, the speaker suggests that moments of joy and beauty can outlast their creators. They imagine the child’s “night dances” carrying on through “pure leaps and spirals,” “travel[ing] / the world forever.” This implies that something of the child’s “dances” will live on after the child has ceased to perform them—even if only in memory.
Yet the speaker then zooms out, contrasting human timescales with the icy “forgetfulness” of outer space. Life seems very fleeting indeed compared to the vast, unfeeling emptiness that surrounds it. In comparison to “the black amnesias of heaven”—a reference to both space and, it seems, the oblivion of death—the speaker says, the child’s small, “warm,” and “human” “gestures” are completely ephemeral.
In light of this contrast between the human and the infinite, the speaker struggles to understand what the point of all this beauty and happiness is when it will so soon be gone. The speaker asks “why” they’ve been “given / [t]hese lamps, these planets,” or the sweet moments that light up the “black” forgetfulness of space, when they can’t last. The speaker compares such moments to “flakes” of snow: unique and beautiful yet short-lived. Just as snow “melts” the second it touches one’s skin, so too are these precious moments in life over before one has the chance to fully appreciate them.
In the end, it’s ambiguous whether the speaker finds such moments of beauty all the more precious because they’re fleeting or despairs at receiving such gifts in the first place, knowing they’ll be taken away.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-10
- Lines 15-28
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The Joy of Parenthood
“The Night Dances” speaks to the joy and poignancy of parenthood (and, if readers take the speaker to be a representation of Plath, motherhood in particular). Watching their baby’s playful antics at bedtime, the speaker reflects that, sadly, their child will inevitably grow out of these “night dances.” Yet in spite of the ephemerality of babyhood, the speaker still thinks of it as a “blessing.” The poem suggests that the shared, tender bond between parents and their children offers beauty, respite, and hope in a world full of loss.
Watching their baby play, the speaker delights in their child’s innocence and silliness: children, the poem suggests, can give their parents deep joy. The baby’s “pure leaps and spirals” suggest that speaker and baby share an innocent glee in just being alive. The speaker also calls their child’s “breath” a “gift,” and says that the child’s “sleep” has a “drenched grass / smell” that reminds them of “lilies.” All of this loving imagery suggests the tender bond between parent and child.
These precious moments of parental connection, according to the speaker, are “lamps” and “planets”—lights of hope in an otherwise dark universe. The speaker also refers to these moments as “[snow]flakes,” suggesting that each of these tiny moments of joy is utterly unique and precious. This again speaks to the powerful bond between parents and children, and perhaps to the power of love itself.
But of course, snowflakes also melt: even while soaking up this moment, the speaker is aware that the joys of babyhood (and all joys!) are temporary. The poem opens with an image of a “smile” (a metaphor for the child or parent’s happiness, perhaps) that has fallen “in the grass.” The speaker then asks the child how their “night dances” will eventually “lose themselves.” Both the fallen smile and the stopping of the dances might suggest a loss of innocence and the end of childhood—the child growing up and away from the speaker, less prone to the adorable antics of youth. Eventually, the child’s sweet “gestures” will “flake off.”
What’s more, even the memories of these times will fade. “The comets / Have such a space to cross,” the speaker says, perhaps suggesting the distance that will someday open up between the speaker and their child, or between the speaker and their memories. In other words, time and distance will eat away at these moments until there’s nothing left.
Yet even as the speaker wonders why she’s been given these moments if they cannot last, the poem still insists that such moments are great “blessings.” The poem’s metaphorical snowflakes—the common yet still beautiful and unique moments that the speaker shares with their child—will all eventually “melt” and end up “nowhere.” Even so, the speaker finds them remarkable. After all, before these moments “melt,” they first land on the speaker’s “eyes,” “lips,” and “hair,” suggesting that every part of the speaker is affected by the experience of parenthood. Perhaps, then, it doesn’t really matter if these moments are ephemeral; they “touch[]” the speaker anyway, giving them poignant joy. Just because babyhood ends, the poem suggests, doesn’t mean it’s not a great “blessing” to a loving parent.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 5-10
- Lines 22-28
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Night Dances”
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Lines 1-2
A smile fell ...
... Irretrievable!The poem begins with a rather strange, even surreal image. The speaker says,
A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!The "smile" here is metaphorical; a smile can't actually "f[a]ll in the grass." Smiles, of course, are signs of happiness and pleasure. The fact that this smile is "[i]rretrievable" thus implies that some happiness or pleasure has been lost for good.
It's not clear whose smile, whose happiness, this is. The speaker might be talking about their child's joy, their own, or both. But readers don't know, in these opening lines, that the poem is being told from the perspective of a parent. As such, this opening metaphor seems to speak to the idea that all happiness, all joy, will eventually be lost.
Note the ambiguity of the poem's title as well. "The Night Dances" could be read two ways: either the "Night" itself is dancing, or somebody's "Dances" happen at "Night." This uncertainty reflects the tension at the heart of the poem, as the speaker grapples with two different perspectives: the cosmic and the human.
The poem establishes its form right away: it's composed entirely of couplets. These two-line stanzas hint at the intimacy between parent and child and also at the conflict that is central to the poem: the significance (or lack thereof) of small, human moments (those little couplets) against the backdrop of an infinite universe (the poem as a whole).
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Lines 3-4
And how will ...
... themselves. In mathematics?
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Lines 5-10
Such pure leaps ...
... sleeps, lilies, lilies. -
Lines 11-14
Their flesh bears ...
... of hot petals. -
Lines 15-18
The comets ...
... gestures flake off— -
Lines 19-23
Warm and human, ...
... lamps, these planets -
Lines 24-28
Falling like blessings, ...
... Nowhere.
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“The Night Dances” Symbols
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The Natural World
The speaker draws on imagery related to the natural world—namely, grass and flowers—to represent the link between the beauty and the fleeting nature of human experience.
In the poem's opening, the speaker says that a "smile fell in the grass"—an ambiguous line that takes on more meaning later on, when the speaker mentions "the drenched grass / Smell of" their child's "sleeps."
- To the speaker, the child's sleep conjures the soothing, refreshing scent of wet grass (perhaps after a rainfall, or simply when soaked with morning dew). This is usually considered a pleasant, comforting scent, and it thus speaks to the tenderness and joy that the speaker derives from watching the sleeping child.
- The scent of fresh grass also suggests lushness and vitality, a world teeming with life. In linking the child's "sleeps" to grass, the poem suggests that the child themselves is tied to the earth; this sleep is part of a deep, natural cycle.
The joy of watching the child's sleep and the loss of that joy are thus both connected to grass—something that, like any living thing, will someday die. The beauty of this moment is linked to something ephemeral, suggesting that this beauty, too, is by its very nature ephemeral.
Notably, the speaker also links the child to "lilies," fragrant flowers that, like grass, don't last forever; their beauty is fleeting. Again, the beauty of life is inextricable from its loss.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “A smile fell in the grass. / Irretrievable!”
- Lines 9-10: “Of your small breath, the drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.”
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Lilies
On one level, the "lilies" mentioned in lines 10-14 symbolize the fleeting beauty, purity, and innocence of the speaker's child. The sleeping child evokes the scent of wet grass and fragrant flowers, sensory imagery that links the child to the ephemeral loveliness of the natural world.
Yet this symbol gains complexity as the speaker goes on to describe two different kinds of lilies—the "calla" and the "tiger"—in detail:
- The first, the "calla" lily, is made up of "[c]old folds of ego," while the second, the "tiger" lily, is marked by vibrant "[s]pots" and "a spread of hot petals."
- These individual lilies, then, might represent the dichotomy between traditionally masculine traits ("cold" stoicism and ambition) and the passion/emotion traditionally linked with femininity (the "spread of hot petals" seems suggestive of female sexuality in particular).
The speaker says that the "flesh" of these lilies actually "bears no relation" (or does not resemble) the child at all! The speaker, then, might be subtly saying that the child resembles neither their mother nor father.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 10-14: “Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies. / Their flesh bears no relation. / Cold folds of ego, the calla, / And the tiger, embellishing itself— / Spots, and a spread of hot petals.”
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“The Night Dances” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Imagery
The poem's imagery helps to highlight the contrast between fleeting human experiences and the cold indifference of the universe.
In lines 9-10, for example, the speaker describes "the drenched grass / Smell" of their child's "sleeps." The sleeping child brings to mind the soothing scent of wet grass (perhaps after heavy rainfall). The lush imagery ties the child to the natural world; this scent is a distinctly earthy one and evokes freshness and vitality.
Similarly, the speaker describes their child's "gestures" as "[w]arm and human," marked by "pink light" that ultimately "[b]leed[s]" and "peel[s]" away. That warmth recalls the warmth of the human body, while the pinkness suggests the color of the child's flesh. The imagery of bleeding and peeling, meanwhile, creates a gruesome sensation of flesh being stripped away. Again, this imagery highlights the child's physicality, in turn reminding readers that the child's body will one day decay. By contrast, space is "cold" and "black," a place devoid of warmth, blood, flesh, and so forth.
Finally, the speaker compares the "gift" of moments with their child to snowflakes, "[s]ix sided, white," that descend on their "eyes," "lips," and "hair." Readers can envision the chilly "flakes" fluttering down onto the speaker like a gentle snowfall, only to immediately melt when coming into contact with the warmth of the speaker's skin. Again, the imagery foregrounds physicality; being human—having a warm body—means being unable to hold onto experiences.
Where imagery appears in the poem:- Lines 9-10: “the drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps,”
- Line 14: “Spots, and a spread of hot petals.”
- Line 19: “Warm and human, then ”
- Lines 19-20: “their pink light / Bleeding and peeling”
- Lines 24-26: “like flakes / Six sided, white / On my eyes, my lips, my hair”
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Simile
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Metaphor
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Personification
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Epizeuxis
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Asyndeton
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Enjambment
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Consonance
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Assonance
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Parallelism
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Rhetorical Question
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“The Night Dances” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Irretrievable
- Spirals
- Drenched
- Ego
- The calla
- Embellishing
- The tiger
- Black amnesias
Irretrievable-
(Location in poem: Line 2: “Irretrievable!”)
Unable to be recovered or returned; lost for good.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Night Dances”
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Form
"The Night Dances" is made up of 28 lines of free verse, which are broken into 14 couplets (two-line stanzas).
On the one hand, these couplets seem to gesture toward the intimacy between the speaker and their child. Each couplet is a pair, like partners in a dance.
These steady couplets also give the poem some regularity and predictability. This, in turn, might subtly echo the "coldness" and "forgetfulness" of outer space, which carries on "mathematic[ally]" regardless of whatever tender moments are occurring in the speaker's life. At the same time, this regular form is in tension with the poem's widely-varying line lengths. There's thus a push and pull between predictability and seeming randomness.
There are also simply a lot of couplets here! Breaking each stanza into just two lines drags the poem out, making it appear longer on the page. In a way, this might subtly reflect the conflict that is playing out inside the speaker: they're moved by the tenderness of one small, "human" moment that will nevertheless be lost in the grand scheme of the universe—just as any individual couplet in the poem might be overwhelmed by the poem as a whole.
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Meter
The poem is written in free verse, so it doesn't use any regular meter. While this is true for the bulk of contemporary poetry (including most of Plath's work), it makes particular sense for this poem. In "The Night Dances," the speaker is grappling with a sense of cosmic insignificance. A steady meter perhaps would have given the poem a soothingly predictable rhythm. The lack of meter, by contrast, highlights the essential meaninglessness of the universe—the idea that human "gestures" (like meter) simply do not matter in the grand scheme of things.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, "The Night Dances" doesn't use a set rhyme scheme. There are moments of musicality in the poem, of course; for example, there's the internal rhyme/assonance of "Cold folds of ego" and the end rhyme between "hair" and "[n]owhere" in the poem's final moments. But these sonic echoes are unpredictable blips of music rather than part of a regular pattern of rhyme. In a way, their randomness reflects the speaker's argument: that moments of human joy are fleeting in the grand, cosmic scheme of things.
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“The Night Dances” Speaker
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The speaker of this poem is watching their child's "night dances"—the "pure leaps and spirals" the child makes in the evening. The speaker clearly feels a great deal of tenderness toward their child and toward this moment in particular, relishing its sweetness while also acknowledging that it, like all moments, cannot last forever.
It's ultimately ambiguous whether the ephemeral nature of precious "beauties" like this makes them more or less meaningful to the speaker. They feel this moment is as special as a snowflake, as joyous and hopeful as a "lamp[]" lighting up the darkness of existence. Even as the speaker deems the universe cold and empty, they declare such interactions with their child to be "blessings" and "gift[s]" (from where/whom, it's not clear). And yet, the speaker also insists that time and space will eventually gobble up all memory of this moment along with the speaker and child themselves. All will be lost in the "black amnesias of heaven."
Do note that the poem only implies this is a parent-child relationship, and it's certainly possible to interpret it otherwise. Unlike some of Plath's more obviously autobiographical poems, this one contains no direct allusions to her life, though her husband, Ted Hughes, has said that the poem was inspired by their own son's little "night dance[]" in his crib.
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“The Night Dances” Setting
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The poem doesn't have much of a physical setting. It presumably takes place at "night," as the speaker looks over their sleeping child. The speaker zooms out to imagine "comets" journeying across the cold, dark expanse of the universe, but this image is one created by the speaker's mind (they haven't literally traveled to outer space!). Indeed, the poem is an introspective one, more concerned with the speaker's inner world and anxieties than with any external setting.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Night Dances”
Literary Context
Sylvia Plath was one of the foremost poets of the 20th century. Famous for her intense, personal verse, Plath is usually grouped in with the Confessionalist movement of the 1950s and '60s.
Confessionalist writers wanted to drop the barrier between themselves and "the speaker" of their poems and to examine aspects of life that a conformist post-war society deemed too indelicate to talk about. Treating all of Plath's work as autobiographical would be an over-simplification, of course, and the term "Confessionalist" risks denying the subtly and imaginative possibilities of her poetry.
That said, the collection in which "The Night Dances" appears, Ariel, was indeed highly personal, informed by Plath's complicated relationship to marriage, motherhood, family, and gender expectations, as well her lifelong struggle with mental illness. Throughout the collection, Plath is able to turn seemingly mundane moments into highly charged, psychologically intense confrontations with her own darkest impulses. "The Night Dances," with its consideration of the fleeting nature of human life alongside the joys of parenthood, is a good example of the kind of complexity found within Plath's work.
According to Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, the poem was inspired by their son Nicholas, whose movements in his crib at night resembled a little dance. And "The Night Dances" is far from the only poem inspired by Plath's two children: "Nick and the Candlestick," which is also about her son, explores the surreal combination of wonder, tenderness, exhaustion, and disorientation of new motherhood. Similar themes appear in "Morning Song," written after the birth of Plath's first child, Frieda.
Historical Context
The years after World War II (1939-1945) saw a renewed focus on family life. As men returned home from war, birthrates ballooned during a “baby boom” that persisted into the 1960s. American society promoted an idealized vision of family life that emphasized traditional gender roles, and women were defined in relation to their husbands and children—that is, as wives and mothers first. As a writer and academic, Plath found many of these stereotyped expectations oppressive. At the same time, she often found great joy and fulfillment in motherhood.
From adolescence onward, Plath also suffered from recurring bouts of suicidal depression. When she wrote this poem in 1962, she was living in England and dealing with a sudden split from her husband, who had left her for another woman. Though Hughes visited periodically, Plath was generally isolated, overwhelmed, and depressed throughout a cold English winter.
This situation, coupled with Plath's lifelong battle with mental illness, may explain the poem's bleak sentiments. Overall, this poem acknowledges both the beauty and joy of parenthood while also hinting at the growing despair that would ultimately result in Plath's death by suicide in February of 1963.
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More “The Night Dances” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poet's Life and Work — A biography of Plath from the Poetry Foundation.
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An Essay About "The Night Dances" — A 2012 essay by Emma Komlos-Hrobsky that discusses the poem, published by Tin House Magazine.
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50 Years of Ariel — An episode of Poetry Off the Shelf, a podcast about contemporary poetry, which discusses the impact of Ariel, the collection in which "The Night Dances" first appeared.
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Forward to the Restored Edition of Ariel — An introduction to the 2010 Restored Edition of Plath's Ariel collection, written by her daughter, Frieda Hughes.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Sylvia Plath
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