The Scene Behind the Carriage Window-Panes
The scene behind the carriage window-panesGoes flitting past in furious flight; whole plainsWith streams and harvest-fields and trees and blueAre swallowed by the whirlpool, whereintoThe telegraph's slim pillars topple o'er,Whose wires look strangely like a music-score.
A smell of smoke and steam, a horrid dinAs of a thousand clanking chains that pinA thousand giants that are whipped and howl,--And, suddenly, long hoots as of an owl.
What is it all to me? Since in mine eyesThe vision lingers that beatifies,Since still the soft voice murmurs in mine ear,And since the Name, so sweet, so high, so dear,Pure pivot of this madding whirl, prevailsAbove the brutal clangor of the rails?
Words in this poem
- flitting n.
- A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
- whereinto adv.
- Into which; -- used relatively.
- topple v. i.
- To fall forward; to pitch or tumble down. [From Top summit.]
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
- horrid a.
- Rough; rugged; bristling. [L. horridus. See Horror, and cf. Ordure.]
- madding a.
- Affected with madness; raging; furious.
- clangor n.
- A sharp, harsh, ringing sound. [L., fr. clangere. See Clang, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Scene Behind the Carriage Window-Panes 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, The Scene Behind the Carriage Window-Panes, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8426, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/verlaine-poems/the-scene-behind-the-carriage-window-panes.html, id L15488.
Form and metre
The Scene Behind the Carriage Window-Panes is 16 lines in 3 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 75% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AA---- panesA · plainsA · blue · whereinto · o'er · score
- 2 AABB dinA · pinA · howlB · owlB
- 3 AABBCC eyesA · beatifiesA · earB · dearB · prevailsC · railsC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The scene behind the carriage window-panes | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Goes flitting past in furious flight; whole plains | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| With streams and harvest-fields and trees and blue | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Are swallowed by the whirlpool, whereinto | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| The telegraph's slim pillars topple o'er, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Whose wires look strangely like a music-score. | 10 | ·/·/˘··/˘· |
| A smell of smoke and steam, a horrid din | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| As of a thousand clanking chains that pin | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| A thousand giants that are whipped and howl,-- | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And, suddenly, long hoots as of an owl. | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| What is it all to me? Since in mine eyes | 10 | ·········· |
| The vision lingers that beatifies, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Since still the soft voice murmurs in mine ear, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And since the Name, so sweet, so high, so dear, | 10 | ·········· |
| Pure pivot of this madding whirl, prevails | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Above the brutal clangor of the rails? | 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.