Magnetic Horror
"Beneath this sky, so livid and strange,Tormented like thy destiny,What thoughts within thy spirit rangeThemselves?--O libertine reply."
--With vain desires, for ever tornTowards the uncertain, and the vast,And yet, like Ovid--I'll not mourn--Who from his Roman Heaven was cast.
O heavens, turbulent as the streams,In you I mirror forth my pride!Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide,
Are the hearses of my dreams,And in your illusion lies the hell,Wherein my heart delights to dwell.
Words in this poem
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- dwell v. i.
- To delay; to linger. [OE. dwellen, dwelien, to err, linger, AS. dwellan to deceive, hinder, delay, dwelian to err; akin to Icel. dvelja to delay, tarry, Sw. dväljas to dwell, Dan. dv]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Magnetic Horror 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, Magnetic Horror, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/magnetic-horror.html, id L25435.
Form and metre
Magnetic Horror is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
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 A-A- strangeA · destiny · rangeA · reply
- 2 ABAB tornA · vastB · mournA · castB
- 3 -AA streams · prideA · glideA
- 4 -AA dreams · hellA · dwellA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "Beneath this sky, so livid and strange, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Tormented like thy destiny, | 8 | /·˘··/˘˘ |
| What thoughts within thy spirit range | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Themselves?--O libertine reply." | 8 | ˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| --With vain desires, for ever torn | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Towards the uncertain, and the vast, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| And yet, like Ovid--I'll not mourn-- | 8 | ········ |
| Who from his Roman Heaven was cast. | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| O heavens, turbulent as the streams, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| In you I mirror forth my pride! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Your clouds, which clad in mourning, glide, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Are the hearses of my dreams, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| And in your illusion lies the hell, | 9 | ···˘/˘··· |
| Wherein my heart delights to dwell. | 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.