Beauty
I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone,And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn,To inspire the love of a poet is prone,Like matter eternally silent and stern.
As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile,My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines,And I hate every movement, displacing the lines,And never I weep and never I smile.
The poets in front of mine attitudes fine(Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant),To studies profound all their moments assign,
For I have all these docile swains to enchant--Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite:Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light!
Words in this poem
- eternally adv.
- In an eternal manner.
- docile a.
- Teachable; easy to teach; docible. [L. docilis,fr. docere to teach; cf. Gr. discere to learn, Gr. docile. Cf. Doctor, Didactic, Disciple.]
- enchant v. t.
- To charm by sorcery; to act on by enchantment; to get control of by magical words and rites. [F. enchanter, L. incantare to chant or utter a magic formula over or against one, to bewitch; in in, against + cantare to sing. See Chant, and cf. Incantation.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Beauty 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, Beauty, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/beauty.html, id L25403.
Form and metre
Beauty is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABAB stoneA · turnB · proneA · sternB
- 2 ABBA nileA · combinesB · linesB · smileA
- 3 A-A fineA · implant · assignA
- 4 -AA enchant · igniteA · lightA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone, | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| And my bosom, where each one gets bruised in turn, | 11 | ··/˘······· |
| To inspire the love of a poet is prone, | 11 | ·˘/····/˘·· |
| Like matter eternally silent and stern. | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘˘/˘·· |
| As an unfathomed sphinx, enthroned by the Nile, | 11 | ··········· |
| My heart a swan's whiteness with granite combines, | 11 | ····/˘·/˘˘/ |
| And I hate every movement, displacing the lines, | 12 | ···/˘/˘˘/˘·· |
| And never I weep and never I smile. | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| The poets in front of mine attitudes fine | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| (Which the proudest of monuments seem to implant), | 11 | ··/˘·/˘··˘/ |
| To studies profound all their moments assign, | 11 | ·/˘˘/··/˘˘/ |
| For I have all these docile swains to enchant-- | 11 | ·····/˘··˘/ |
| Two mirrors, which Beauty in all things ignite: | 11 | ·/˘·/˘···˘/ |
| Mine eyes, my large eyes, of eternal Light! | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
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.