09 October,2010 08:06 AM IST | | Agencies
In a final ode to one of literature's great doomed romances, a previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes was published in which he describes the dark last days leading up to Sylvia Plath's suicide.
Last Letter was unearthed in an archive of papers in the British Library belonging to Hughes, the late English poet laureate.
The poem has been printed for the first time by New Statesman magazine.
Hughes sheds new light on the three days in February, 1963, that ended with his American wife gassing herself at age 30 after they separated, beginning the poem with the words: "What happened that night? Your final night."
Hughes left her and their two children.
The love affair between Plath and Hughes, the trauma when he left her after six years of marriage for another woman and her eventual suicide have been an enduring source of fascination and spawned an industry of books and films.
Hughes stayed silent about his wife's death until 1998, when he published the acclaimed poetry collection Birthday Letters.
Hughes died of cancer just months later.
