ILL Luck
This heavy burden to uplift,O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required!And even though the heart aspired,Art is long and Time is swift.
Afar from sepulchres renowned,To a graveyard, quite apart,Like a broken drum, my heart,Beats the funeral marches' sound.
Many a buried jewel sleepsIn the long-forgotten deeps,Far from mattock and from sound;
Many a flower wafts aloftIts perfumes, like a secret soft,Within the solitudes, profound.
Words in this poem
- uplift v. t.
- To lift or raise aloft; to raise; to elevate; as, to uplift the arm; to uplift a rock.
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- graveyard n.
- A yard or inclosure for the interment of the dead; a cemetery.
- mattock n.
- An implement for digging and grubbing. The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax. [AS. mattuc; cf. W. matog.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
ILL Luck 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, ILL Luck, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/ill-luck.html, id L25400.
Form and metre
ILL Luck is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in iambic 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 upliftA · requiredB · aspiredB · swiftA
- 2 ABBA renownedA · apartB · heartB · soundA
- 4 AA- aloftA · softA · profound
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| This heavy burden to uplift, | 8 | ·/˘/˘·/˘ |
| O Sysiphus, thy pluck is required! | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| And even though the heart aspired, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Art is long and Time is swift. | 7 | ······· |
| Afar from sepulchres renowned, | 8 | ˘/···˘/˘ |
| To a graveyard, quite apart, | 7 | ··/··˘/ |
| Like a broken drum, my heart, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Beats the funeral marches' sound. | 8 | ··/˘˘/˘· |
| Many a buried jewel sleeps | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| In the long-forgotten deeps, | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| Far from mattock and from sound; | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Many a flower wafts aloft | 8 | /˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Its perfumes, like a secret soft, | 8 | ·˘/··/˘· |
| Within the solitudes, profound. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
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.