Mrs. Murray Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGDHIJKLMGNOMPQ NROSJRTODUOVWXYQZPA2 NB2PP C2TD2OE2F2G2H2OI2J2K 2OOL2MM2N2G2SO2 PP2PQ2R2OH2E2S2SOT2U 2V2PW2 OG2QZKX2PY2H2 N2KN2Z2JPA3PB3C3PU2P N2D2OPD3N2E3P PF3U2G3OG2H2H3PQKI3P U2J3K3L3M3N3PPO3P3Q3 R3PON2L PE2P3F3OS3T3G2U3V3N2 W3U3ZX3G2Q2N2UPY3OSZ 3A4G2 B4C4AOA3D4LPE4F4G4H4 U3AOI4OQJ4PPH2OSK4V2 O2N2G4L4GY3OE2M4PPY2 N4PNG4PO4Q2PH3P4Q4PP 4H2R4S4T4B3U4V4W4 K2N2R4X4WHO3Y4H2PPL3 Z4OH2 COPQOOPPQOPO B3PG2Y3SSPOQ2POZ4UV3 OO3 N2JPP2H2G2F4PF3L3I2F 3L3 OU2OQ2A4QMA4L2A4ZOQ2 HL3X4O2A4 ONG2PPH2J3A4G2 OA4A4A4PA4OKH2PG2A4P A4PA4PMA4Y2A4PWA4U3A 4PA4POU3H2OJ3PPA4O MOOQ2O A4P3O2A4 PX3PTMOQ4PON PNOV3PA4

I think she said at first	A
My daughter did not kill herself I'm sure	B
Someone did violence to her your tests	C
Examination will prove violence	D
It would be like her fate to meet with such	E
Poor child unfortunate from birth at least	F
Unfortunate in fortune peace and joy	G
Or else if she met with no violence	D
Some sudden crisis of her woman's heart	H
Came on her by the river the result	I
Of strains and labors in the war in France	J
I'll tell you why I say this First I knew	K
She had come near me from New York there came	L
A letter from her saying she had come	M
To visit with her aunt there near LeRoy	G
And rest and get the country air She said	N
To keep it secret not to tell her father	O
That she was in no frame of mind to come	M
And be with us and see her father see	P
Our life which is the same as it was when	Q
She was a child and after But she said	N
To come to her And so the day before	R
They found her by the river I went over	O
And saw her for the day She seemed most gay	S
Gave me the presents which she brought from France	J
Told me of many things but rather more	R
By way of half told things than something told	T
Continuously you know She had grown fairer	O
She had a majesty of countenance	D
A luminous glory shone about her face	U
Her voice was softer eyes looked tenderer	O
She held my hands so lovingly when we met	V
She kissed me with such silent speaking love	W
But then she laughed and told me funny stories	X
She seemed all hope and said she'd rest awhile	Y
Before she made a plan for life again	Q
And when we parted she said Mother think	Z
What trip you'd like to take I've saved some money	P
And you must have a trip a rest construct	A2
Yourself anew for life So as I said	N
She came to death by violence or else	B2
She had some weakness that she hid from me	P
Which came upon her quickly	P
	-
For the rest	C2
Suppose I told you all my life and told	T
What was my waste in life and what in hers	D2
How I have lived and how poor Elenor	O
Was raised or half raised what's the good of that	E2
Are not there rooms of books of tales and poems	F2
And histories to show all secrets of life	G2
Does anyone live now or learn a thing	H2
Not lived and learned a thousand times before	O
The trouble is these secrets are locked up	I2
In books and might as well be locked in graves	J2
Since they mean nothing till you live yourself	K2
And I suppose the race will live and suffer	O
As long as leaves put forth in spring live over	O
The very sorrows horrors that we live	L2
Wisdom is here but how to learn that wisdom	M
And use it while life's worth the living that's	M2
The thing to be desired But let it go	N2
If any soul can profit by my life	G2
Or by my Elenor's I trust he may	S
And help him to it	O2
	-
Coroner Merival	P
Even the children in this neighborhood	P2
Know something of my husband and of me	P
Our struggle and unhappiness even the children	Q2
Hear Alma Bell's name mentioned with a look	R2
And if you went about here to inquire	O
About my Elenor you'd find them saying	H2
She was a wonder girl or this or that	E2
But then you'd feel a closing up of speech	S2
As if a door closed softly just a way	S
To indicate that something else was there	O
Somewhere in the person's room of thoughts	T2
This is the truth since I was told a man	U2
Came here to ask about her when she asked	V2
To serve in France the matter of Alma Bell	P
Traced down and probed	W2
	-
It being true therefore	O
That you and all the rest know of my life	G2
Our life at home it matters nothing then	Q
That I go on and tell you what I think	Z
Made sorrow for us what our waste was tell you	K
How the yarn knotted as we took the skein	X2
And wound it to a ball and made the ball	P
So hardly knotted that the yarn held fast	Y2
Would not unwind for knitting	H2
	-
Well you know	N2
My father Arthur Fouche my mother too	K
They reared me with the greatest care You know	N2
They sent me to St Mary's where I learned	Z2
Fine things to be a lady learned to dance	J
To play on the piano sing a little	P
Learned French Italian learned to know good books	A3
The beauty of a poem or a tale	P
Learned elegance of manners how to walk	B3
Stand breathe keep well be radiant and strong	C3
And so in all to make life beautiful	P
Become the helpful wife of some strong man	U2
The mother of fine children Well at school	P
We girls were guarded from the men and so	N2
We went to town surrounded by our teachers	D2
And only saw the boys when some girl's brother	O
Came to the school to visit perhaps a girl	P
Consent had of her parents to receive	D3
A beau sometimes But then I had no beau	N2
And had I had my father would have kept him	E3
Away from me at school	P
	-
For truth to tell	P
When I had finished school came back to home	F3
They kept the men away there was no man	U2
Quite good enough to call Now here begins	G3
My fate as you will see their very care	O
To make me what they wished to have my life	G2
Grow safely prosperously was my undoing	H2
I had a sister named Corinne who suffered	H3
Because of that my father guarded me	P
Against all strolling lovers unknown men	Q
But here was Henry Murray whom they knew	K
And trusted too and though they never dreamed	I3
I'd marry him they trusted him to call	P
He seemed a quiet diligent young man	U2
Aspiring in the world And so they thought	J3
They'd solve my loneliness and restless spirits	K3
By opening the door to him My fate	L3
They let him call upon me twice a month	M3
He was in love with me before this started	N3
That's why he tried to call But as for me	P
He was a man that's all a being only	P
In the world to talk to help my loneliness	O3
I had no love for him no more than I	P3
Had love for father's tenant on the farm	Q3
And what I knew of marriage what it means	R3
Was what a child knows If you'll credit me	P
I thought a man and woman slept together	O
Lay side by side and somehow I don't know	N2
That children came	L
	-
But then I was so vital	P
Rebellious hungering for freedom that	E2
No chance was too indifferent to put by	P3
What offered freedom from the prison home	F3
The watchfulness of father and of mother	O
The rigor of my discipline And in truth	S3
No other man came by no prospect showed	T3
Of going on a visit finding life	G2
Some other place And so it came about	U3
After I knew this man two months one night	V3
I made a rope of sheets down from my window	N2
Descended to his arms eloped in short	W3
And married Henry Murray and found out	U3
What marriage is believe me Well I think	Z
The time will come when marriage will be known	X3
Before the parties tie themselves for life	G2
How do you know a man or know a woman	Q2
Until the flesh instructs you Do you know	N2
A man until you see him face to face	U
Or know what texture is his hand until	P
You touch his hand Well lastly no one knows	Y3
Whether a man is mate for you before	O
You mate with him I hope to see the day	S
When men and women to try out their souls	Z3
Will live together learning A B C 's	A4
Of life before they write their fates for life	G2
	-
Our story started then To sate their rage	B4
My father and my mother cut me off	C4
And so we had bread problems from the first	A
He made but little clerking in the store	O
Besides his mind was on the law and books	A3
These were the early tangles of our yarn	D4
And I grew worried as the children came	L
Two sons at first and I was far from well	P
One died at five years and I almost died	E4
For grief at this But down below all things	F4
Far down below all tune or scheme of sound	G4
Where no rests were but only ceaseless dirge	H4
Was my heart's de profundis crying out	U3
My thirst for love not thirst for his but thirst	A
For love that quenched it But the only water	O
That passed my lips was desert water poisoned	I4
By arsenic from his rocks My soul grew bitter	O
Then sweetened under the cross grew bitter again	Q
My life lay raving on the desert sands	J4
To speak more plainly sleep deserted me	P
I could not sleep for thought and for a will	P
That could not bend but hoped that death or something	H2
Would take him from me bring me love before	O
My face was withered as it is to day	S
At last the doctor found me growing mad	K4
For lack of sleep Why was I so he asked	V2
You must give up this psychic work and quit	O2
This psychic writing let the spirits go	N2
Well it was true that years before I found	G4
I heard and saw with higher power received	L4
Deep messages from spirits from my boy	G
Who passed away And as to this who knows	Y3
Surely no doctor of this psychic power	O
You may be called neurotic what is that	E2
Perhaps it is the soul become so fine	M4
It leaves the body or shakes down the body	P
With energy too subtle for the body	P
But I was sleepless for these years at last	Y2
The secret lost of sleep for seven days	N4
And seven nights could find no sleep until	P
I lay upon the lawn and pushed my head	N
As a dog does around around around	G4
There was a devil in me at one with me	P
And neither to be put out nor yet subdued	O4
By help outside and nothing to be done	Q2
Except to find escape by knife or pistol	P
And thus get sleep Escape Oh that's the word	H3
There's something in the soul that says escape	P4
Fly fly from something and in truth my friend	Q4
Life's restlessness however healthful it be	P
Is motived by this urge to fly escape	P4
Well to go on they gave me everything	H2
At last they gave me chloral but no sleep	R4
And finally I closed my eyes and quick	S4
The secret came to me as one might find	T4
After forgetting how to swim or walk	B3
After a sickness and for just two minutes	U4
I slept and then I got the secret back	V4
And later slept	W4
	-
So I possessed myself	K2
But for these years sleep but two hours or so	N2
Why do I wake The spirits let me sleep	R4
Oh no it is my longing that will rest not	X4
These thoughts of him that rest not and this love	W
That never has been satisfied this heart	H
So empty all these years the bitterness	O3
Of living face to face with one you loathe	Y4
Yet pity while you hate yourself for feeling	H2
Such bitterness toward another soul	P
As wretched as your own But then as well	P
I could not sleep for Elenor for her fate	L3
Never to have a chance in life I saw	Z4
Our poverty made surer year by year	O
Slip by with chances slipping	H2
	-
Oh that child
When I first felt her lips that sucked my breasts	C
My heart went muffled like a bird that tries
To pour its whole song in one note and fails
Out of its very ecstasy A daughter	O
A little daughter at my breast a soul	P
Of a woman to be I knew her spirit then	Q
Felt all my love and longing in her lips
Felt all my passion purity of desire	O
In those sweet lips that sucked my breasts Oh rapture	O
Oh highest rapture God had given me	P
To see her roll upon my arm and smile	P
Full fed the milk that gurgled from her lips
Such blue eyes oh my child My child my child
I have no hope now of this life no hope
Except to take you to my breast again	Q
God will be good and give you to me or	O
God will bring sleep to me a sleep so still	P
I shall not miss you Elenor	O
	-
I go on
I see her when she first began to walk	B3
She ran at first just like a baby quail	P
She never walked She danced into this life	G2
She used to dance for minutes on her toes	Y3
My starved heart bore her vital in some way	S
My hope which would not die had made her gay	S
And unafraid and venturesome and hopeful	P
She did not know what sadness was or fear	O
Or anything but laughter play and fun	Q2
Not till she grew to ten years and could see	P
The place in life that God had given her	O
Between my life and his and then I saw	Z4
A thoughtfulness come over her as a cloud
Passes across the sun and makes one place	U
A shadow while the landscape lies in light	V3
So quietness would come over her with smiles
Around her quietness and sunniest laughter	O
Fast following on her quietness	O3
	-
Well you know	N2
She went to school here as the others did
But who knew that I grieved to see her lose
A schooling at St Mary's have no chance	J
No chance save what she earned herself What girl	P
Has earned the money for two years in college
Beside my Elenor in this neighborhood	P2
There is not one But then if books and schooling	H2
Be things prerequisite for success in life	G2
Why should we have a social scheme that clings	F4
To marriage and the home when such a soul	P
Is turned into the world from such a home	F3
With schooling so inadequate If the state	L3
May take our sons and daughters for its use
In war in peace why let the state raise up	I2
And school these sons and daughters let the home	F3
Go to full ruin from half ruin now
And let us who have failed in choosing mates
Re choose without that fear of children's fate	L3
Which haunts us now
	-
For look at Elenor	O
Why did she never marry Any man	U2
Had made his life rich had he married her	O
But in this present scheme of things such women	Q2
Move in a life where men are mostly less	A4
In mind and heart than they are and the men	Q
Who are their equals never come to them
Or come to them too seldom or if they come	M
Are blind and do not know these Elenors	A4
And she had character enough to live	L2
In single life refuse the lesser chance	A4
Since she found not the great one as I think	Z
But let it pass I'm sure she was beloved
And more than once I'm sure But I am sure	O
She was too wise for errors crude and common	Q2
And if she had a love that stopped her heart	H
She knew beforehand all and met her fate	L3
Bravely and wrote that To be brave and not	X4
To flinch to keep before her soul her faith
Deep down within it lest she might forget it	O2
Among her crowded thoughts	A4
	-
She went to the war	O
She came to see me before she went and said	N
She owed her courage and her restless spirit
To me her will to live her love of life	G2
Her power to sacrifice and serve to me	P
She put her arms about my neck and kissed me	P
Said I had been a mother to her being	H2
A mother if no more wished she had brought	J3
More happiness to me material things	A4
Delight in life	G2
	-
Of course her work took strength
Her life was sapped by service in the war	O
She died for country for America
As much as any soldier So I say	A4
If her life came to any waste what waste
May her heroic life and death prevent
The world has spent two hundred billion dollars	A4
To put an egotist and strutting despot
Out of the power he used to tyrannize	A4
Over his people with a tyranny	P
Political in chief to take away	A4
The glittering dominion of a crown
I want some good to us out of this war	O
And some emancipation Let me tell you	K
I know a worse thing than a German king	H2
It is the social scourge of poverty	P
Which cripples slays the husband and the wife	G2
And sends the children forth in life half formed
I know a tyranny more insidious	A4
Than any William had it is the tyranny	P
Of superstition customs laws and rules	A4
The tyranny of the church the tyranny	P
Of marriage and the tyranny of beliefs	A4
Concerning right and wrong of good and evil	P
The tyranny of taboos the despotism	M
That rules our spirits with commands and threats	A4
Ghosts of dead faiths and creeds ghosts of the past	Y2
The tyranny in short that starves and chains	A4
Imprisons scourges crucifies the soul	P
Which only asks the chance to live and love	W
Freely as it wishes which will live so	A4
If you take Poverty and chuck him out	U3
Then make the main thing inner growth take rules	A4
Conventions and religion save it be	P
The worship of God in spirit without hands	A4
And without temples sacraments the babble	P
Of moralists the rant and flummery	O
Of preachers and of priests and chuck them out	U3
These things produce your waste and suffering	H2
You tell a soul it sins and make it suffer	O
Spend years in impotence and twilight thought	J3
You punish where no punishment should be	P
Weaken and break the soul You weight the soul	P
With idols and with symbols meaningless	A4
When God gave but three things the earth and air	O
And mind to know them live in freedom by them
	-
Well I would have America become	M
As free as any soul has ever dreamed her	O
And if America does not get strength
To free herself now that the war is over	O
Then Elenor Murray's spirit has not won	Q2
The thing she died for	O
	-
So I go my way	A4
Back to get supper I who live shall die	P3
In America as it is Rise up and change it	O2
For mothers of the future Elenors	A4
	-
By now the press was full of Elenor Murray	P
And far and near wherever she was known	X3
Had lived or taught or studied tongues were loosed
In episodes or stories of the girl	P
The coroner on the street was button holed	T
Received marked articles and letters some	M
Anonymous some crazy David Borrow	O
Who helped this Alma Bell as lawyer friend	Q4
Found in his mail a note from Alma Bell	P
Enclosed with one much longer written for	O
The coroner to read	N
	-
When Merival	P
Had read it then he said to Borrow Read	N
This letter to the other jurors So	O
He read it to them as they sat one night	V3
Invited to the home of Merival	P
To drink a little wine and have a smoke
And talk about the case	A4

Edgar Lee Masters

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