Cats
All ardent lovers and all sages prize,--As ripening years incline upon their brows--The mild and mighty cats--pride of the house--That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise.
The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy,They search for silence and the horrors of gloom;The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom,Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery.
When musing, they display those outlines chaste,Of the great sphinxes--stretched o'er the sandy waste,That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end:
From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies,And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand,Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes.
Words in this poem
- indolent a.
- Free from toil, pain, or trouble. [Pref. in- not + L. dolens, -entis, p. pr. of dolere to feel pain: cf. F. indolent. See Dolorous.]
- bestar v. t.
- To sprinkle with, or as with, stars; to decorate with, or as with, stars; to bestud.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cats 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, Cats, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/cats.html, id L25428.
Form and metre
Cats is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 A--A prizeA · brows · house · wiseA
- 2 -AA- ecstasy · gloomA · doomA · slavery
- 3 AA- chasteA · wasteA · end
- 4 A-A fliesA · sand · eyesA
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 iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| All ardent lovers and all sages prize, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| --As ripening years incline upon their brows-- | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| The mild and mighty cats--pride of the house-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| That like unto them are indolent, stern and wise. | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| The friends of Learning and of Ecstasy, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| They search for silence and the horrors of gloom; | 11 | ···/˘··/˘·· |
| The devil had used them for his steeds of Doom, | 10 | ·/········ |
| Could he alone have bent their pride to slavery. | 11 | ··˘/·····/˘ |
| When musing, they display those outlines chaste, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/·· |
| Of the great sphinxes--stretched o'er the sandy waste, | 11 | ···/˘···/˘· |
| That seem to slumber deep in a dream without end: | 12 | ···/˘······· |
| From out their loins a fountainous furnace flies, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| And grains of sparkling gold, as fine as sand, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Bestar the mystic pupils of their eyes. | 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.