The Venal Muse
Oh Muse of my heart--so fond of palaces old,Wilt have--when New Year speeds its wintry blast,Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast,A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold?
Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then reviveWith nightly rays that through thy shutters peep?And--void thy purse and void thy palace--reapA golden hoard within some azure hive?
Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night,Suspend the censer like an acolyte,Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease,
Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obsceneEssay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen;Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees.
Words in this poem
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- marbled a.
- Made of, or faced with, marble.
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
- censer n.
- A vessel for perfumes; esp. one in which incense is burned. [For incenser, fr. OF. encensier, F. encensoir, fr. LL. incensarium, incensorium, fr. L. incensum incense. See Incense, and cf. Incensory.]
- acolyte n.
- One who has received the highest of the four minor orders in the Catholic church, being ordained to carry the wine and water and the lights at the Mass. [LL. acolythus, acoluthus, Gr. acolyte.]
- sanctimonious a.
- Possessing sanctimony; holy; sacred; saintly. [See Sanctimony.]
- lull v. t.
- To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm; to soothe; to quiet. [Akin to OD. lullen to sing to sleep, G. lullen, Dan. lulle, Sw. lulla; all of imitative origin. Cf. Loll, Lollard.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Venal Muse 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, The Venal Muse, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/the-venal-muse.html, id L25397.
Form and metre
The Venal Muse is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABBA oldA · blastB · o'ercastB · coldA
- 2 ABBA reviveA · peepB · reapB · hiveA
- 3 AA- nightA · acolyteA · ease
- 4 AA- obsceneA · spleenA · sees
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Oh Muse of my heart--so fond of palaces old, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Wilt have--when New Year speeds its wintry blast, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Amid those tedious nights, with snow o'ercast, | 10 | ˘/·/˘····· |
| A log to warm thy feet, benumbed with cold? | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Wilt thou thy marbled shoulders then revive | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| With nightly rays that through thy shutters peep? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And--void thy purse and void thy palace--reap | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| A golden hoard within some azure hive? | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Thou must, to earn thy daily bread, each night, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Suspend the censer like an acolyte, | 10 | ˘/·/˘··/˘· |
| Te-Deums sing, with sanctimonious ease, | 10 | ·····˘/˘˘· |
| Or as a famished mountebank, with jokes obscene | 12 | ·····/˘˘··˘/ |
| Essay to lull the vulgar rabble's spleen; | 10 | ˘/···/˘/˘· |
| Thy laughter soaked in tears which no one sees. | 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.