Autumn Song
They ask me--thy crystalline eyes, so acute,"Odd lover--why am I to thee so dear?"--Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear,For all save the rude and untutored brute,
Is loth its infernal depths to reveal,And its dissolute motto engraven with fire,Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire!I abominate passion and wit makes me ill.
So let us love gently. Within his retreat,Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey,I know all the arms of his battle array.
Delirium and loathing--O pale Marguerite!Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray,Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite!
Words in this poem
- dissolute a.
- With nerves unstrung; weak. [L. dissolutus, p. p. of dissolvere: cf. F. dissolu. See Dissolve.]
- charmer n.
- One who charms, or has power to charm; one who uses the power of enchantment; a magician. Deut. xviii. 11.
- abominate v. t.
- To turn from as ill-omened; to hate in the highest degree, as if with religious dread; loathe; as, to abominate all impiety. [L. abominatus, p. p. or abominari to deprecate as ominous, to abhor, to curse; ab + omen a foreboding. See Omen.]
- marguerite n.
- The daisy (Bellis perennis). The name is often applied also to the ox-eye daisy and to the China aster. [F., a pearl, a daisy. See Margarite.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Autumn Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Flowers of Evil, Project Gutenberg ebook #36098; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles Baudelaire, Autumn Song, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/autumn-song.html, id L25426.
Form and metre
Autumn Song is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
See other poems in anapaestic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBA acuteA · dearB · searB · bruteA
- 2 -AA- reveal · fireA · inspireA · ill
- 3 -AA retreat · preyA · arrayA
- 4 A-A margueriteA · ray · margueriteA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They ask me--thy crystalline eyes, so acute, | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| "Odd lover--why am I to thee so dear?" | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| --Be sweet and keep silent, my heart, which is sear, | 11 | ····/˘····· |
| For all save the rude and untutored brute, | 11 | ·········˘· |
| Is loth its infernal depths to reveal, | 10 | ···˘/˘··˘/ |
| And its dissolute motto engraven with fire, | 12 | ··/˘˘/˘····/ |
| Oh charmer! whose arms endless slumber inspire! | 11 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘/ |
| I abominate passion and wit makes me ill. | 12 | ·˘/˘˘/˘····· |
| So let us love gently. Within his retreat, | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| Foreboding, Love seeks for his arrows a prey, | 11 | ˘/˘····/˘·· |
| I know all the arms of his battle array. | 11 | ·······/˘˘/ |
| Delirium and loathing--O pale Marguerite! | 11 | ˘/˘·/˘···˘/ |
| Like me, art thou not an autumnal ray, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Alas my so white, my so cold Marguerite! | 11 | ˘/·······˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.