Invocation To The Muses Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CDCEEFEGGEHIJIKLK MCNMCC EEEOOPPQGEQ GGGGRRHSTS PUHQHPPPU QPVPWVPP XXYZHY PPPHEPPPA2A2PA2P HPHPZGGCGPG PB2C2HGGZD2D2Z| Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute | A |
| of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall New York January th | B |
| - | |
| Great Muse that from this hall absent for long | C |
| Hast never been | D |
| Great Muse of Song | C |
| Colossal Muse of mighty Melody | E |
| Vocal Calliope | E |
| With thine august and contrapuntal brow | F |
| And thy vast throat builded for Harmony | E |
| For the strict monumental pure design | G |
| And the melodic line | G |
| Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters mdash be with me | E |
| If I address thee in archaic style mdash | H |
| Words obsolete words obsolescent | I |
| It is that for a little while | J |
| The heart must oh indeed must from this angry and out rageous present | I |
| Itself withdraw | K |
| Into some past in which most crooked Evil | L |
| Although quite certainly conceived and born was not as yet the Law | K |
| - | |
| Archaic or obsolescent at the least | M |
| Be thy grave speaking and the careful words of thy clear song | C |
| For the time wrongs us and the words most common to our speech today | N |
| Salute and welcome to the feast | M |
| Conspicuous Evil mdash or against him all day long | C |
| Cry out telling of ugly deeds and most uncommon wrong | C |
| - | |
| Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters mdash be with me | E |
| But oh be more with those who are not free | E |
| Who herded into prison camps all shame must suffer and all outrage see | E |
| Where music is not played nor sung | O |
| Though the great voice be there no sound from the dry throat across the thickened tongue | O |
| Comes forth nor has he heart for it | P |
| Beauty in all things mdash no we cannot hope for that but some place set apart for it | P |
| Here it may dwell | Q |
| And with your aid Melpomene | G |
| And all thy sister muses for ye are I think daughters of Memory | E |
| Within the tortured mind as well | Q |
| - | |
| Reaped are those fields with dragon's teeth so lately sown | G |
| Many the heaped men dying there so close hip touches thigh yet each man dies alone | G |
| Music what overtone | G |
| For the soft ultimate sigh or the unheeded groan | G |
| Hast thou mdash to make death decent where men slip | R |
| Down blood to death no service of grieved heart or ritual lip | R |
| Transferring what was recently a man and still is warm mdash | H |
| Transferring his obedient limbs into the shallow grave where not again a friend shall greet him | S |
| Nor hatred do him harm | T |
| Nor true love run to meet him | S |
| - | |
| In the last hours of him who lies untended | P |
| On a cold field at night and sees the hard bright stars | U |
| Above his upturned face and says aloud How strange my life is ended mdash | H |
| If in the past he loved great music much and knew it well | Q |
| Let not his lapsing mind be teased by well beloved but ill remembered bars mdash | H |
| Let the full symphony across the blood soaked field | P |
| By him be heard most pure in every part | P |
| The lonely horror of whose painful death is thus repealed | P |
| Who dies with quiet tears upon his upturned face making to glow with softness the hard stars | U |
| - | |
| And bring to those who knew great poetry well | Q |
| Page after page that they have loved but have not learned by heart | P |
| We who in comfort to well lighted shelves | V |
| Can turn for all the poets ever wrote | P |
| Beseech you Bear to those | W |
| Who love high art no less than we ourselves | V |
| Those who lie wounded those who in prison cast | P |
| Strive to recall to ease them some great ode and every stanza save the last | P |
| - | |
| Recall mdash oh in the dark restore them | X |
| The unremembered lines make bright the page before them | X |
| Page after page present to these | Y |
| In prison concentrated watched by barbs of bayonet and wire | Z |
| Give ye to them their hearts' intense desire mdash | H |
| The words of Shelley Virgil Sophocles | Y |
| - | |
| And thou O lovely and not sad | P |
| Euterpe be thou in this hall tonight | P |
| Bid us remember all we ever had | P |
| Of sweet and gay delight mdash | H |
| We who are free | E |
| But cannot quite be glad | P |
| Thinking of huge abrupt disaster brought | P |
| Upon so many of our kind | P |
| Who treasure as do we the vivid look on the unfrightened face | A2 |
| The careless happy stride from place to place | A2 |
| And the unbounded regions of untrammelled thought | P |
| Open as interstellar space | A2 |
| To the exploring and excited mind | P |
| - | |
| O Muses O immortal Nine mdash | H |
| Or do ye languish Can ye die | P |
| Must all go under mdash | H |
| How shall we heal without your help a world | P |
| By these wild horses torn asunder | Z |
| How shall we build anew mdash How start again | G |
| How cure how even moderate this pain | G |
| Without you and you strong | C |
| And if ye sleep then waken | G |
| And if ye sicken and do plan to die | P |
| Do not that now | G |
| - | |
| Hear us in what sharp need we cry | P |
| For we have help nowhere | B2 |
| If not in you | C2 |
| Pity can much and so a mighty mind but cannot all things do mdash | H |
| By you forsaken | G |
| We shall be scattered we shall be overtaken | G |
| Oh come Renew in us the ancient wonder | Z |
| The grace of life its courage and its joy | D2 |
| Weave us those garlands nothing can destroy | D2 |
| Come with your radiant eyes mdash with your throats of thunder | Z |
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1)
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