Archibald Lowell Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIDJKLBMNOPMQ RNNSTUVWXPYZA2B2Y SC2D2SNE2FF2G2NNAH2A NI2J2K2GNI2OL2M2NH2N D I2N2TO2P2Q2BHYN2R2S2 T2U2V2KG2G2W2K2NX2 Y2Z2A3B3OC3D3E3F3Z2G 2G3H3I3T2H2NJ3K3J2PA Q2 L3M3N3XK3RO3NS ANP3N3N KQ3D3A2R3S3XQ2A2I2NT 3QU3V3YNTT2N AW3T2H2NBX3MT2Y3Z3A4 T2T2K2YB4XYHXC4D4KNE 4NYNIHK2NDO2UF4GG4H4 B2PNI2 I4S2H4YS2HNQ2QD YF4BJ4 NNPK4L4 F4K3NM4N4F2NO4P4TQNB 3M3 KQ4NR4F2S4Q2T4WYS4U4 V4K4N2Q2W4AI YX4Y4V2 NR3Z4YNNHBZ3Q| Archibald Lowell owner of the Times | A |
| Lived six months of the year at Sunnyside | B |
| His Gothic castle near LeRoy so named | C |
| Because no sun was in him it may be | D |
| His wife was much away when on this earth | E |
| At cures in travel fighting psychic ills | F |
| Approaching madness dying nerves They said | G |
| Her heart was starved for living with a man | H |
| So cold and silent Thirty years she lived | I |
| Bound to this man in restless agony | D |
| And as she could not free her life from his | J |
| Nor keep it living with him on a day | K |
| She stuck a gas hose in her mouth and drank | L |
| Her lungs full of the lethal stuff and died | B |
| That was the very day the hunter found | M |
| Elenor Murray's body near the river | N |
| A servant saw this Mrs Lowell lying | O |
| A copy of the Times clutched in her hand | P |
| Which published that a slip of paper found | M |
| In Elenor Murray's pocket had these words | Q |
| To be brave and not to flinch And was she brave | R |
| And nerved to end it by these words of Elenor | N |
| But Archibald the husband could not bear | N |
| To have the death by suicide made known | S |
| He laid the body out as if his wife | T |
| Had gone to bed as usual turned a jet | U |
| And left it just as if his wife had failed | V |
| To fully turn it then went in the room | W |
| Then called the servants did not know that one | X |
| Had seen her with the Times clutched in her hand | P |
| He thought the matter hidden Merival | Y |
| All occupied with Elenor Murray's death | Z |
| Gave to a deputy the Lowell inquest | A2 |
| But later what this servant saw was told | B2 |
| To Merival | Y |
| - | |
| And now no more alone | S |
| Than when his wife lived Lowell passed the days | C2 |
| At Sunnyside as he had done for years | D2 |
| He sat alone and paced the rooms alone | S |
| With hands behind him clasped in fear and wonder | N |
| Of life and what life is He rode about | E2 |
| And viewed his blooded cattle on the hills | F |
| But what were all these rooms and acres to him | F2 |
| With no face near him but the servants gardeners | G2 |
| Sometimes he wished he had a child to draw | N |
| Upon his fabulous income growing more | N |
| Since all his life was centered in the Times | A |
| To swell its revenues and in the process | H2 |
| His spirit was more fully in the Times | A |
| Than in his body There were eyes who saw | N |
| How deftly was his spirit woven in it | I2 |
| Until it was a scarf to bind and choke | J2 |
| The public throat or stifle honest thought | K2 |
| Like a soft pillow offered for the head | G |
| But used to smother There were eyes who saw | N |
| The working of its ways emasculate | I2 |
| Its tones of gray where flame had been the thing | O |
| Its timorous steps while spying on the public | L2 |
| To learn the public's thought Its cautious pauses | M2 |
| With foot uplifted ears pricked up to hear | N |
| A step fall twig break Platitudes in progress | H2 |
| With sugar coat of righteousness and order | N |
| Respectability | D |
| - | |
| Did the public make it | I2 |
| Or did it make the public that it fitted | N2 |
| With such exactness in the communal life | T |
| Some thousands thought it fair what should they think | O2 |
| When it played neutral in the matter of news | P2 |
| To both sides of the question though at last | Q2 |
| It turned the judge and chose the better side | B |
| Determined from the first a secret plan | H |
| And cunning way to turn the public scale | Y |
| Some thousands liked the kind of news it printed | N2 |
| Where no sensation flourished smallest type | R2 |
| That fixed attention for the staring eyes | S2 |
| Needed for type so small But others knew | T2 |
| It led the people by its fair pretensions | U2 |
| And used them in the end In any case | V2 |
| This editor played hand ball in this way | K |
| The advertisers tossed the ball the readers | G2 |
| Caught it and tossed it to the advertisers | G2 |
| And as the readers multiplied the columns | W2 |
| Of advertising grew and Lowell's thought | K2 |
| Was how to play the one against the other | N |
| And fill his purse | X2 |
| - | |
| It was an ingrown mind | Y2 |
| And growing more ingrown with time Afraid | Z2 |
| Of crowds and streets uncomfortable in clubs | A3 |
| No warmth in hands to touch his fellows' hands | B3 |
| Keeping aloof from politicians loathing | O |
| The human alderman who bails the thief | C3 |
| The little scamp who pares a little profit | D3 |
| And grafts upon a branch that takes no harm | E3 |
| He loved the active spirit if it worked | F3 |
| And feared the active spirit if it played | Z2 |
| This Lowell hid himself from favor seekers | G2 |
| Such letters filtered to him through a sieve | G3 |
| Of secretaries If he had a friend | H3 |
| Who was a mind to him as well perhaps | I3 |
| It was a certain lawyer but who knew | T2 |
| And cursed with monophobia none the less | H2 |
| This Lowell lived alone there near LeRoy | N |
| Surrounded by his servants at his desk | J3 |
| A secretary named McGill who took | K3 |
| Such letters editorials as he spoke | J2 |
| His life was nearly waste A peanut stand | P |
| Should be as much remembered as the Times | A |
| When fifty years are passed | Q2 |
| - | |
| And every month | L3 |
| The circulation manager came down | M3 |
| To tell the great man of the gain or loss | N3 |
| The paper made that month in circulation | X |
| In advertising chiefly Lowell took | K3 |
| The audit sheets and studied them and gave | R |
| Steel bullet words of order this or that | O3 |
| He took the dividends and put them where | N |
| God knew alone | S |
| - | |
| He went to church sometimes | A |
| On certain Sundays for a pious mother | N |
| Had reared him so and sat there like a corpse | P3 |
| A desiccated soul so dry the moss | N3 |
| Upon his teeth was dry | N |
| - | |
| And on a day | K |
| His wife now in the earth a week or so | Q3 |
| Himself not well the doctor there to quiet | D3 |
| His fears of sudden death pains in the chest | A2 |
| His manager had come was made to wait | R3 |
| Until the doctor finished brought the sheets | S3 |
| Which showed the advertising circulation | X |
| And Lowell studied them and said at last | Q2 |
| That new reporter makes the Murray inquest | A2 |
| A thing of interest does the public like it | I2 |
| To which the manager It sells the paper | N |
| And then the great man It has served its use | T3 |
| Now being nearly over print these words | Q |
| The Murray inquest shows to what a length | U3 |
| Fantastic wit can go it should be stopped | V3 |
| An editorial later might be well | Y |
| Comment upon a father and a mother | N |
| Invaded in their privacy and life | T |
| In intimate relations dragged to view | T2 |
| To sate the curious eye | N |
| - | |
| Next day the Times | A |
| Rebuked the coroner in these words And then | W3 |
| Merival sent word I come to see you | T2 |
| Or else you come to see me or by process | H2 |
| If you refuse And so the editor | N |
| Invited Merival to Sunnyside | B |
| To talk the matter out This was the talk | X3 |
| First Merival went over all the ground | M |
| In mild locution what he sought to do | T2 |
| How as departments in the war had studied | Y3 |
| Disease and what not tabulated facts | Z3 |
| He wished to make a start for knowing lives | A4 |
| And finding remedies for lives It's true | T2 |
| Not much might be accomplished also true | T2 |
| The poet and the novelist gave thought | K2 |
| Analysis to lives yet who could tell | Y |
| What system might grow up to find the fault | B4 |
| In marriage as it is in rearing children | X |
| In motherhood in homes for Merival | Y |
| By way of wit said to this dullest man | H |
| I know of mother and of home of heaven | X |
| I've yet to learn Whereat the great man winced | C4 |
| To hear the home and motherhood so slurred | D4 |
| And briefly said the Times would go its way | K |
| To serve the public interests and to foster | N |
| American ideals as he conceived them | E4 |
| Then Merival who knew the great man's nature | N |
| How small it was and barren cold and dull | Y |
| And wedded to small things to gold and fear | N |
| Of change and knew the life the woman lived | I |
| These seven days in the earth with such a man | H |
| Just by a zephyr of intangible thought | K2 |
| Veered round the talk to her to voice a wonder | N |
| About the jet left turned his deputy | D |
| Had overlooked a hose which she could drink | O2 |
| Gas from a jet You needn't touch the jet | U |
| Just leave it as she left it hide the hose | F4 |
| And leave the gas on put the woman in bed | G |
| This deputy said Merival was slack | G4 |
| And let a verdict pass of accident | H4 |
| Oh yes said Merival your servant told | B2 |
| About the hose the Times clutched in her hand | P |
| And may I test this jet while I am here | N |
| Go up to see and test it | I2 |
| - | |
| Whereupon | I4 |
| The great man with wide eyes stared in the eyes | S2 |
| Of Merival was speechless for a moment | H4 |
| Not knowing what to say while Merival | Y |
| Read something in his eyes saw in his eyes | S2 |
| The secret beat to cover saw the man | H |
| Turn head away which shook a little saw | N |
| His chest expand for breath and heard at last | Q2 |
| The editor in four steel bullet words | Q |
| It is not necessary | D |
| - | |
| Merival | Y |
| Had trapped the solitary fox arose | F4 |
| And going said If it was suicide | B |
| The inquest must be changed | J4 |
| - | |
| The editor | N |
| Looked through the window at the coroner | N |
| Walking the gravel walk and saw his hand | P |
| Unlatch the iron gate and saw him pass | K4 |
| From view behind the trees | L4 |
| - | |
| Then horror rose | F4 |
| Within his brain a nameless horror took | K3 |
| The heart of him for fear this coroner | N |
| Would dig this secret up and show the world | M4 |
| The dead face of the woman self destroyed | N4 |
| And of the talk which would not come to him | F2 |
| To poison air he breathed no less of why | N |
| This woman took her life if for ill health | O4 |
| Then why ill health O well he knew at heart | P4 |
| What he had done to break her starve her life | T |
| And now accused himself too much for words | Q |
| Ways temperament of him that murdered her | N |
| For lovelessness and for deliberate hands | B3 |
| That pushed her off and down | M3 |
| - | |
| He rode that day | K |
| To see his cattle overlook the work | Q4 |
| But when night came with silence and the cry | N |
| Of night hawks and the elegy of leaves | R4 |
| Beneath the stars that looked so cold at him | F2 |
| As he turned seeking sleep the dreaded pain | S4 |
| Grew stronger in his breast Dawn came at last | Q2 |
| And then the stir and voices of the maids | T4 |
| And after breakfast in the carven room | W |
| Archibald Lowell standing by the mantel | Y |
| In his great library felt sudden pain | S4 |
| Saw sudden darkness nothing saw at once | U4 |
| Lying upon the marble of the hearth | V4 |
| His great head cut which struck the post of brass | K4 |
| In the hearth's railing only a little blood | N2 |
| Archibald Lowell being dead at last | Q2 |
| The Times left to the holders of the stock | W4 |
| Who kept his policy and kept the Times | A |
| As if the great man lived | I |
| - | |
| And Merival | Y |
| Taking the doctor's word that death was caused | X4 |
| By angina pectoris let it drop | Y4 |
| And went his way with Elenor Murray's case | V2 |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| So Lowell's dead and buried had to die | N |
| But not through Elenor Murray That's the Fate | R3 |
| That laughs at greatness little things that sneak | Z4 |
| From alien neighborhoods of life and kill | Y |
| And Lowell leaves a will to which a boy | N |
| Who sold the Times once afterward the Star | N |
| Is alien as this Elenor to the man | H |
| Who owned the Times But still is brought in touch | |
| With Lowell's will because this Lowell died | B |
| Before he died And Merival learns the facts | Z3 |
| And brings them to the jury in these words | Q |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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