The Wine of Lovers
To-day the Distance is superb,Without bridle, spur or curb,Let us mount on the back of wineFor Regions fairy and divine!
Let's, like two angels tortured bySome dark, delirious phantasy,Pursue the distant mirage drawnO'er the blue crystal of the dawn!
And gently balanced on the wingOf some obliging whirlwind, we--In equal rapture revelling--
My sister, side by side will flee,Without repose, nor truce, where gleamsThe golden Paradise of my dreams!
Words in this poem
- superb a.
- Grand; magnificent; august; stately; as, a superb edifice; a superb colonnade. [F. superbe, L. superbus, fr. super over. See Super-.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Wine of Lovers 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 Wine of Lovers, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/the-wine-of-lovers.html, id L25443.
Form and metre
The Wine of Lovers is 14 lines in 4 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABB superbA · curbA · wineB · divineB
- 2 --AA by · phantasy · drawnA · dawnA
- 3 A-A wingA · we · revellingA
- 4 -AA flee · gleamsA · dreamsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To-day the Distance is superb, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Without bridle, spur or curb, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Let us mount on the back of wine | 8 | ········ |
| For Regions fairy and divine! | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Let's, like two angels tortured by | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Some dark, delirious phantasy, | 9 | ··˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Pursue the distant mirage drawn | 8 | ˘/·/˘˘/· |
| O'er the blue crystal of the dawn! | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And gently balanced on the wing | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Of some obliging whirlwind, we | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
| --In equal rapture revelling-- | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘ |
| My sister, side by side will flee, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Without repose, nor truce, where gleams | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| The golden Paradise of my dreams! | 9 | ·/˘/˘···· |
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.