Birds in the Night VI
I see you still! Dressed in a summer dress,Yellow and white, bestrewn with curtain-flowers;But you had lost the glistening laughingnessOf our delirious former loving hours.
The eldest daughter and the little wifeSpoke plainly in your bearing's least detail,--Already 'twas, alas! our altered lifeThat stared me from behind your dotted veil.
Forgiven be! And with no little prideI treasure up,--and you, no doubt, see why,--Remembrance of the lightning to one sideThat used to flash from your indignant eye!
Words in this poem
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
- indignant a.
- Affected with indignation; wrathful; passionate; irate; feeling wrath, as when a person is exasperated by unworthy or unjust treatment, by a mean action, or by a degrading accusation. [L. indignans, -antis, p. pr. of indignari to be indignant, disdain. See Indign.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Birds in the Night VI is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8426, the Gertrude Hall 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: Paul Verlaine, Birds in the Night VI, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8426, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/verlaine-poems/birds-in-the-night-vi.html, id L15498.
Form and metre
Birds in the Night VI is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB dressA · flowersB · laughingnessA · hoursB
- 2 ABAB wifeA · detailB · lifeA · veilB
- 3 ABAB prideA · whyB · sideA · eyeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I see you still! Dressed in a summer dress, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Yellow and white, bestrewn with curtain-flowers; | 11 | /˘·····/˘/˘ |
| But you had lost the glistening laughingness | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of our delirious former loving hours. | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘/ |
| The eldest daughter and the little wife | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Spoke plainly in your bearing's least detail,-- | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Already 'twas, alas! our altered life | 10 | ˘/˘·˘///˘· |
| That stared me from behind your dotted veil. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Forgiven be! And with no little pride | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| I treasure up,--and you, no doubt, see why,-- | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Remembrance of the lightning to one side | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| That used to flash from your indignant eye! | 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.