Ode To Silence Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Edna St. Vincent Millay

Ode To Silence Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Aye but she	A
Your other sister and my other soul	B
Grave Silence lovelier	C
Than the three loveliest maidens what of her	C
Clio not you	D
Not you Calliope	A
Nor all your wanton line	E
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me	A
For Silence once departed	F
For her the cool tongued her the tranquil hearted	F
Whom evermore I follow wistfully	A
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through	D
Thalia not you	D
Not you Melpomene	E
Not your incomparable feet O thin Terpsichore	D
I seek in this great hall	G
But one more pale more pensive most beloved of you all	G
I seek her from afar	D
I come from temples where her altars are	D
From groves that bear her name	H
Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame	H
And cymbals struck on high and strident faces	I
Obstreperous in her praise	J
They neither love nor know	E
A goddess of gone days	J
Departed long ago	E
Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes	J
Of her old sanctuary	D
A deity obscure and legendary	D
Of whom there now remains	J
For sages to decipher and priests to garble	K
Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble	K
Which even now behold the friendly mumbling rain erases	J
And the inarticulate snow	E
Leaving at last of her least signs and traces	J
None whatsoever nor whither she is vanished from these places	J
She will love well I said	L
If love be of that heart inhabiter	D
The flowers of the dead	L
The red anemone that with no sound	M
Moves in the wind and from another wound	M
That sprang the heavily sweet blue hyacinth	N
That blossoms underground	M
And sallow poppies will be dear to her	D
And will not Silence know	E
In the black shade of what obsidian steep	O
Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep	O
Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home	P
Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago	E
Reluctant even as she	D
Undone Persephone	E
And even as she set out again to grow	E
In twilight in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam	P
She will love well I said	L
The flowers of the dead	L
Where dark Persephone the winter round	M
Uncomforted for home uncomforted	M
Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily	D
With sullen pupils focussed on a dream	Q
Stares on the stagnant stream	Q
That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell	R
There there will she be found	M
She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound	M
	-
I long for Silence as they long for breath	S
Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea	D
What thing can be	D
So stout what so redoubtable in Death	S
What fury what considerable rage if only she	D
Upon whose icy breast	M
Unquestioned uncaressed	M
One time I lay	T
And whom always I lack	U
Even to this day	T
Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away	T
If only she therewith be given me back	U
I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth	N
Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell	R
And in among the bloodless everywhere	D
I sought her but the air	D
Breathed many times and spent	M
Was fretful with a whispering discontent	M
And questioning me importuning me to tell	R
Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more	D
Plucking my sleeve the eager shades were with me where I went	M
I paused at every grievous door	D
And harked a moment holding up my hand and for a space	J
A hush was on them while they watched my face	J
And then they fell a whispering as before	D
So that I smiled at them and left them seeing she was not there	D
I sought her too	M
Among the upper gods although I knew	M
She was not like to be where feasting is	J
Nor near to Heaven's lord	M
Being a thing abhorred	M
And shunned of him although a child of his	J
Not yours not yours to you she owes not breath	S
Mother of Song being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death	S
Fearing to pass unvisited some place	J
And later learn too late how all the while	V
With her still face	J
She had been standing there and seen me pass without a smile	V
I sought her even to the sagging board whereat	M
The stout immortals sat	M
But such a laughter shook the mighty hall	G
No one could hear me say	T
Had she been seen upon the Hill that day	T
And no one knew at all	G
How long I stood or when at last I sighed and went away	T
	-
There is a garden lying in a lull	K
Between the mountains and the mountainous sea	D
I know not where but which a dream diurnal	K
Paints on my lids a moment till the hull	K
Be lifted from the kernel	K
And Slumber fed to me	D
Your foot print is not there Mnemosene	M
Though it would seem a ruined place and after	D
Your lichenous heart being full	W
Of broken columns caryatides	D
Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees	D
And urns funereal altered into dust	M
Minuter than the ashes of the dead	M
And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up thrust	M
Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed	M
Of Love and his young body asleep but now is dust instead	M
	-
There twists the bitter sweet the white wisteria	D
Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall	G
And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds	D
There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds	D
But never an echo of your daughters' laughter	D
Is there nor any sign of you at all	G
Swells fungous from the rotten bough grey mother of Pieria	D
	-
Only her shadow once upon a stone	M
I saw and lo the shadow and the garden too were gone	M
	-
I tell you you have done her body an ill	X
You chatterers you noisy crew	D
She is not anywhere	D
I sought her in deep Hell	R
And through the world as well	R
I thought of Heaven and I sought her there	D
Above nor under ground	M
Is Silence to be found	M
That was the very warp and woof of you	D
Lovely before your songs began and after they were through	D
Oh say if on this hill	X
Somewhere your sister's body lies in death	S
So I may follow there and make a wreath	Y
Of my locked hands that on her quiet breast	M
Shall lie till age has withered them	Z
	-
Ah sweetly from the rest	M
I see	D
Turn and consider me	D
Compassionate Euterpe	O
There is a gate beyond the gate of Death	S
Beyond the gate of everlasting Life	A2
Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell she saith	S
Whereon but to believe is horror	D
Whereon to meditate engendereth	S
Even in deathless spirits such as I	B2
A tumult in the breath	S
A chilling of the inexhaustible blood	M
Even in my veins that never will be dry	B2
And in the austere divine monotony	D
That is my being the madness of an unaccustomed mood	M
	-
This is her province whom you lack and seek	C2
And seek her not elsewhere	D
Hell is a thoroughfare	D
For pilgrims Herakles	D
And he that loved Euridice too well	R
Have walked therein and many more than these	D
And witnessed the desire and the despair	D
Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air	D
You too have entered Hell	R
And issued thence but thence whereof I speak	C2
None has returned for thither fury brings	D
Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things	D
Oblivion is the name of this abode and she is there	D
	-
Oh radiant Song Oh gracious Memory	D
Be long upon this height	M
I shall not climb again	M
I know the way you mean the little night	M
And the long empty day never to see	D
Again the angry light	M
Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain	M
Ah but she	D
Your other sister and my other soul	B
She shall again be mine	M
And I shall drink her from a silver bowl	B
A chilly thin green wine	M
Not bitter to the taste	M
Not sweet	M
Not of your press oh restless clamorous nine	M
To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth	S
But savoring faintly of the acid earth	S
And trod by pensive feet	M
From perfect clusters ripened without haste	M
Out of the urgent heat	M
In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine	M
	-
Lift up your lyres Sing on	M
But as for me I seek your sister whither she is gone	M