Ode To Silence
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.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Edna St. Vincent Millay addresses the Muses as if she were speaking in a high, public ritual, yet the poem is deeply personal: she is searching for Silence, imagined as a beloved sister, a lost companion, and almost a second self. Rather than praising song, memory, or dramatic art in the usual way, she insists that these powers cannot console her for the absence of the stillness she craves. The poem moves across a grand landscape of temples, Hell, Heaven, gardens, and mythic underworlds, but each search only sharpens the sense that Silence has slipped beyond ordinary reach.
As the poem progresses, the speaker's desire becomes more urgent and paradoxical. She imagines Silence as linked to death, oblivion, Persephone, and hidden flowers, suggesting that quiet is not simply the absence of sound but a condition outside life's noise and striving. Yet the poem does not settle into despair. In the final movement, Silence is placed beyond both death and eternal life, in a realm where neither song nor memory can follow. The central tension is between the poet's own art, which depends on speech, and her longing for a state that poetry can only approach indirectly. The result is a poem that both celebrates language's power and admits its failure before ultimate stillness.
Theme
- Longing for silence - The poem treats silence as a precious lost presence, not just an absence of noise, and the speaker's search gives it the emotional weight of a beloved person.
- Art versus stillness - By addressing the Muses while rejecting their comfort, the poem sets artistic expression against the deeper desire for quiet, rest, and release.
- Death and oblivion - Silence becomes linked to death, the underworld, and forgetting, suggesting a realm beyond ordinary human experience where all sound and memory fall away.
- Myth as emotional language - Greek gods, muses, and underworld figures give the speaker's private longing a vast, ceremonial scale.
- Absence and pursuit - The poem is structured as a search that never finds its object, making absence itself the governing emotional fact.
- The desire for rest - Beneath the ornate imagery lies a wish to escape noise, strain, and mental turbulence into something cool, still, and final.
Literary Devices
- Apostrophe - The poem directly addresses the Muses and Silence, creating the feeling of a solemn invocation and making abstract forces seem present and responsive.
- Mythological allusion - Figures such as Persephone, Demeter, and the Muses expand the speaker's private loss into a larger cultural and spiritual drama.
- Personification - Silence is imagined as a living sister and companion, giving the abstract idea emotional intimacy and narrative presence.
- Extended metaphor - The search for Silence becomes a journey through sacred and underworld spaces, turning an inward longing into a physical quest.
- Imagery - The poem's flowers, ruins, shrines, and dark landscapes create a vivid sensory world that reflects the speaker's yearning and unease.
- Repetition - Repeated appeals to the Muses and reiterated searching emphasize obsession, persistence, and frustration.
- Allusion to the underworld - References to Hell, Persephone, and oblivion help define Silence as something beyond ordinary life and even beyond death.
- Enjambment - The long, flowing lines carry the reader forward without easy rest, mirroring the speaker's restless pursuit.
Symbolism
- Silence - Symbolizes the speaker's deepest longing for calm, release, and an end to mental and sensory disturbance.
- The Muses - Represent poetry, memory, and artistic speech, the powers the speaker both invokes and resists.
- Persephone - Suggests a hidden, seasonal form of beauty linked to death, return, and the border between life and oblivion.
- Flowers of the dead - The blossoms associated with graves and the underworld stand for beauty touched by mortality and quiet.
- Broken ruins - The ruined garden and shattered classical forms symbolize loss, decay, and the fading of cultural memory.
- Oblivion - The final destination of the search functions as the symbol of total erasure, beyond the reach of song or remembrance.
Tone
The tone is elevated, urgent, and intensely ceremonial, as Edna St. Vincent Millay frames a private hunger in the language of myth and invocation. She sounds simultaneously reverent and defiant: reverent toward Silence as an almost sacred presence, and defiant toward the noisy powers of song, memory, and celebration that cannot replace it. For the reader, the mood feels haunted and suspended, full of grandeur but also ache, as if the poem were moving through a vast echoing space toward a refuge that can barely be named.
Historical Context
Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in a period when many modern poets were reworking classical materials rather than simply imitating them. Her poetry often combines formal elegance, emotional intensity, and a distinctly modern awareness of contradiction, and this poem reflects that blend through its use of Greek myth and its skeptical attitude toward the consolations of art. The invocation of the Muses places the poem in a long Western lyric tradition while also allowing Millay to question whether poetry itself can satisfy the soul's deeper cravings.
The poem also fits a broader early twentieth-century interest in psychological inwardness, fragmentation, and the limits of language. Its classical references are not decorative; they help stage a conflict between civilization's inherited forms and a more private desire for stillness, erasure, or transcendence. That tension is especially characteristic of poets who used myth to probe modern consciousness rather than escape from it.