Interior Life
A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes,While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires,And which with their great and majestic spires,At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes.
The billows, in rolling depictured the skies,And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain,The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrainWith the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes.
It is there that I lived in exalted calm,In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves,While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves
Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm,Whose gentle and only care was to knowThe secret that caused me to languish so.
Words in this poem
- eventide n.
- The time of evening; evening. [AS. æfentid. See Tide.]
- basaltic a.
- Pertaining to basalt; formed of, or containing, basalt; as basaltic lava. [Cf. F. basaltique.]
- luscious a.
- Sweet; delicious; very grateful to the taste; toothsome; excessively sweet or rich. [Prob. for lustious, fr. lusty, or perh. a corruption of luxurious. Cf. Lush, Lusty.]
- reflexed a.
- Bent backward or outward.
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- languish v. i.
- To cause to dr Shak.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Interior Life 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, Interior Life, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/interior-life.html, id L25401.
Form and metre
Interior Life is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
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 porticoesA · firesB · spiresB · grottoesA
- 2 ABBA skiesA · strainB · refrainB · eyesA
- 3 -AA calm · wavesA · slavesA
- 4 -AA palm · knowA · soA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A long while I dwelt beneath vast porticoes, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| While the ocean-suns bathed with a thousand fires, | 12 | ··/˘····/˘/˘ |
| And which with their great and majestic spires, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| At eventide looked like basaltic grottoes. | 11 | ·/˘˘··˘/˘/· |
| The billows, in rolling depictured the skies, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘····· |
| And mingled, in solemn and mystical strain, | 11 | ·/˘·/˘·/˘˘· |
| The all-mighteous chords of their luscious refrain | 11 | ·······/˘˘/ |
| With the sun-set's colours reflexed in mine eyes. | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| It is there that I lived in exalted calm, | 11 | ·······˘/˘· |
| In the midst of the azure, the splendour, the waves, | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| While pregnant with perfumes, naked slaves | 10 | ·/˘·˘//˘˘· |
| Refreshed my forehead with branches of palm, | 11 | ˘/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Whose gentle and only care was to know | 10 | ·/˘·/˘···· |
| The secret that caused me to languish so. | 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.