Ode To Silence Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDAEAFFADDEDGGDDH HIJEJEJDDJKKJEJJLDLM MNMDEOOPEDEEPLLMMDQQ RMM SDDSDMMTUTTUNRDDMMRD MDJJDDMMJMMJSSJVJVMM GTTGT KDKKKDMDWDDMMMMM DGDDDGD MM XDDRRDMMDDXSYMZ MDDOSA2SDSB2SMB2DM C2DDDRDDDRC2DDD DMMMDMMDBMBMMMMSSMMM M MMAye 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 |
Edna St. Vincent Millay
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