Mists and Rains
O last of Autumn and Winter--steeped in haze,O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise,Because around my heart and brain you twineA misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine.
On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound,Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round,My soul, more free than in the springtime soft,Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft,
Unto an heart with gloomy things replete,On which remain the frosts of former Times,O pallid seasons, mistress of our climes
As your pale shadows--nothing is so sweet,Unless it be, on a moonless night a-twain,On some chance couch to soothe to sleep our Pain.
Words in this poem
- springtime n.
- The season of spring; springtide.
- replete a.
- Filled again; completely filled; full; charged; abounding. [L. repletus, p. p. of replere to fill again, fill up; pref. re- re- + plere to fill, akin to plenus full: cf. F. replet corpulent. See Plenty, Replenish.]
- moonless a.
- Being without a moon or moonlight.
- soothe v. t.
- To assent to as true. Testament of Love. [Originally, to assent to as true; OE. so to verify, AS. ges to prove the truth of, to bear witness. See Sooth, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mists and Rains 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, Mists and Rains, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/mists-and-rains.html, id L25442.
Form and metre
Mists and Rains is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 AABB hazeA · praiseA · twineB · shrineB
- 2 AABB aboundA · roundA · softB · aloftB
- 3 -AA replete · timesA · climesA
- 4 -AA sweet · twainA · painA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O last of Autumn and Winter--steeped in haze, | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
| O sleepy seasons! you I love and praise, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Because around my heart and brain you twine | 10 | ·········· |
| A misty winding-sheet and a nebulous shrine. | 11 | ·/˘/˘···/˘· |
| On that great plain, where frigid blasts abound, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Where through the nights, so long, the vane whirls round, | 10 | ·········· |
| My soul, more free than in the springtime soft, | 10 | ·······/·· |
| Will stretch her raven wings and soar aloft, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Unto an heart with gloomy things replete, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| On which remain the frosts of former Times, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| O pallid seasons, mistress of our climes | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·/· |
| As your pale shadows--nothing is so sweet, | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| Unless it be, on a moonless night a-twain, | 11 | ······/˘··· |
| On some chance couch to soothe to sleep our Pain. | 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.