Smoke
Beneath yon tree sits humbleA squalid, hunchbacked house,With roof precipitous,And mossy walls that crumble.
Bolted and barred the shanty.But from its must and mould,Like breath of lips in cold,Comes respiration scanty.
A vapour upward welling,A slender, silver streak,To God bears tidings meekOf the soul in the little dwelling.
Words in this poem
- squalid a.
- Dirty through neglect; foul; filthy; extremely dirty. [L. squalidus, fr. squalere to be foul or filthy.]
- hunchbacked a.
- Having a humped back.
- shanty n.
- A small, mean dwelling; a rough, slight building for temporary use; a hut. [Said to be fr. Ir. sean old + tig. a house.]
- mould n.
- Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil. [OE. molde, AS. molde; akin to D. mul, G. mull, mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, and E. meal flour. See Meal, and cf. Mole a]
- vapour n.
- Any substance in the gaseous, or aëriform, state, the condition of which is ordinarily that of a liquid or solid. [OE. vapour, OF. vapour, vapor, vapeur, F. vapeur, L. vapor; probably for cvapor, and akin to Gr. kvepti to breathe, smell, Russ. kopote fine soot. Cf. Vapid.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Smoke is in the public domain. This text is taken from Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, the Agnes Lee translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Théophile Gautier, Smoke, in Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #29521, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/gautier-enamels-cameos/smoke.html, id L27008.
Form and metre
Smoke is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 ABBA humbleA · houseB · precipitousB · crumbleA
- 2 ABBA shantyA · mouldB · coldB · scantyA
- 3 ABBA wellingA · streakB · meekB · dwellingA
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 yon tree sits humble | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| A squalid, hunchbacked house, | 6 | ·/˘/·· |
| With roof precipitous, | 6 | ··˘/˘˘ |
| And mossy walls that crumble. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Bolted and barred the shanty. | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| But from its must and mould, | 6 | ······ |
| Like breath of lips in cold, | 6 | ······ |
| Comes respiration scanty. | 7 | ··˘/˘/˘ |
| A vapour upward welling, | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| A slender, silver streak, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| To God bears tidings meek | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Of the soul in the little dwelling. | 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.