Music
Oft Music possesses me like the seas!To my planet pale,'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze,I set my sail.
With inflated lungs and expanded chest,Like to a sail,On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest--Which the shadows veil--
I feel all the anguish within me ariseOf a ship in distress;The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies,
My body caress;At times, the calm pool or the mirror clearOf my despair!
Words in this poem
- backs n.
- Among leather dealers, the thickest and stoutest tanned hides.
- caress n.
- An act of endearment; any act or expression of affection; an embracing, or touching, with tenderness. [F. caresse, It. carezza, LL. caritia dearness, fr. L. carus dear. See Charity.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Music 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, Music, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/music.html, id L25430.
Form and metre
Music is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas.
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 ABAB seasA · paleB · breezeA · sailB
- 2 ABAB chestA · sailB · restA · veilB
- 3 A-A ariseA · distress · skiesA
- 4 -AA caress · clearA · despairA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oft Music possesses me like the seas! | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘···· |
| To my planet pale, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| 'Neath a ceiling of mist, in the lofty breeze, | 11 | ··/˘····/˘· |
| I set my sail. | 4 | ···· |
| With inflated lungs and expanded chest, | 10 | ·˘/˘··˘/˘· |
| Like to a sail, | 4 | ···· |
| On the backs of the heaped-up billows I rest-- | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Which the shadows veil-- | 5 | ··/·· |
| I feel all the anguish within me arise | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| Of a ship in distress; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The tempest, the rain, 'neath the lowering skies, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘˘· |
| My body caress; | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
| At times, the calm pool or the mirror clear | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of my despair! | 4 | ··˘/ |
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.