Ode to Silence

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

       Aye, but she?
       Your other sister and my other soul
       Grave Silence, lovelier
       Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
       Clio, not you,
       Not you, Calliope,
       Nor all your wanton line,
       Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
       For Silence once departed,
       For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
       Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
     Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
     Thalia, not you,
     Not you, Melpomene,
     Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore,
     I seek in this great hall,
     But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.
     I seek her from afar,
     I come from temples where her altars are,
     From groves that bear her name,
     Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame,
     And cymbals struck on high and strident faces
     Obstreperous in her praise
     They neither love nor know,
     A goddess of gone days,
     Departed long ago,
     Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes
     Of her old sanctuary,
     A deity obscure and legendary,
     Of whom there now remains,
     For sages to decipher and priests to garble,
     Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble,
     Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases,
     And the inarticulate snow,
     Leaving at last of her least signs and traces
     None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
     "She will love well," I said,
     "If love be of that heart inhabiter,
     The flowers of the dead;
     The red anemone that with no sound
     Moves in the wind, and from another wound
     That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth,
     That blossoms underground,
     And sallow poppies, will be dear to her.
     And will not Silence know
     In the black shade of what obsidian steep
     Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep?
     (Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home,
     Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago,
     Reluctant even as she,
     Undone Persephone,
     And even as she set out again to grow
     In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam).
     She will love well," I said,
     "The flowers of the dead;
     Where dark Persephone the winter round,
     Uncomforted for home, uncomforted,
     Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily,
     With sullen pupils focussed on a dream,
     Stares on the stagnant stream
     That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell,
     There, there will she be found,
     She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound."

     "I long for Silence as they long for breath
     Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea;
     What thing can be
     So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death
     What fury, what considerable rage, if only she,
     Upon whose icy breast,
     Unquestioned, uncaressed,
     One time I lay,
     And whom always I lack,
     Even to this day,
     Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,
     If only she therewith be given me back?"
     I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth,
     Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell,
     And in among the bloodless everywhere
     I sought her, but the air,
     Breathed many times and spent,
     Was fretful with a whispering discontent,
     And questioning me, importuning me to tell
     Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more,
     Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.
     I paused at every grievous door,
     And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space
     A hush was on them, while they watched my face;
     And then they fell a-whispering as before;
     So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.
     I sought her, too,
     Among the upper gods, although I knew
     She was not like to be where feasting is,
     Nor near to Heaven's lord,
     Being a thing abhorred
     And shunned of him, although a child of his,
     (Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath,
     Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).
     Fearing to pass unvisited some place
     And later learn, too late, how all the while,
     With her still face,
     She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile,
     I sought her even to the sagging board whereat
     The stout immortals sat;
     But such a laughter shook the mighty hall
     No one could hear me say:
     Had she been seen upon the Hill that day?
     And no one knew at all
     How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.

     There is a garden lying in a lull
     Between the mountains and the mountainous sea,
     I know not where, but which a dream diurnal
     Paints on my lids a moment till the hull
     Be lifted from the kernel
     And Slumber fed to me.
     Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene,
     Though it would seem a ruined place and after
     Your lichenous heart, being full
     Of broken columns, caryatides
     Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees,
     And urns funereal altered into dust
     Minuter than the ashes of the dead,
     And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust,
     Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed
     Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.

     There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria
     Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,
     And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;
     There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;
     But never an echo of your daughters' laughter
     Is there, nor any sign of you at all
     Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria!

     Only her shadow once upon a stone
     I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.

     I tell you you have done her body an ill,
     You chatterers, you noisy crew!
     She is not anywhere!
     I sought her in deep Hell;
     And through the world as well;
     I thought of Heaven and I sought her there;
     Above nor under ground
     Is Silence to be found,
     That was the very warp and woof of you,
     Lovely before your songs began and after they were through!
     Oh, say if on this hill
     Somewhere your sister's body lies in death,
     So I may follow there, and make a wreath
     Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast
     Shall lie till age has withered them!

                             (Ah, sweetly from the rest
     I see
     Turn and consider me
     Compassionate Euterpe!)
     "There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,
     Beyond the gate of everlasting Life,
     Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith,
     "Whereon but to believe is horror!
     Whereon to meditate engendereth
     Even in deathless spirits such as I
     A tumult in the breath,
     A chilling of the inexhaustible blood
     Even in my veins that never will be dry,
     And in the austere, divine monotony
     That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.

     This is her province whom you lack and seek;
     And seek her not elsewhere.
     Hell is a thoroughfare
     For pilgrims,—Herakles,
     And he that loved Euridice too well,
     Have walked therein; and many more than these;
     And witnessed the desire and the despair
     Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air;
     You, too, have entered Hell,
     And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak
     None has returned;—for thither fury brings
     Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.
     Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there."

     Oh, radiant Song!  Oh, gracious Memory!
     Be long upon this height
     I shall not climb again!
     I know the way you mean,—the little night,
     And the long empty day,—never to see
     Again the angry light,
     Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain!
     Ah, but she,
     Your other sister and my other soul,
     She shall again be mine;
     And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,
     A chilly thin green wine,
     Not bitter to the taste,
     Not sweet,
     Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,—
     To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth—
     But savoring faintly of the acid earth,
     And trod by pensive feet
     From perfect clusters ripened without haste
     Out of the urgent heat
     In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine.

     Lift up your lyres!  Sing on!
     But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.