Analysis of The Voice
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
I was the height of a folio, my bed just
backed on the bookcases’ sombre Babel,
everything, Latin ashes, Greek dust
jumbled together: novel, science, fable.
Two voices spoke to me. One, firmly, slyly,
said: ‘The Earth’s a cake filled with sweetness:
I can give you (and your pleasure will be
endless!) an appetite of comparable vastness.’
The other said: ‘Come! Come voyage in dream,
beyond the known, beyond the possible!’
And that one sang like the ocean breeze,
phantom, from who knows where, its wail
caressing the ear, and yet still frightening.
You I answered: ‘Yes! Gentle voice!’ My
wound and what, I’d call my fatality, begins
alas, from then. From behind the scenery
of vast existence, in voids without light,
I see the strangest worlds distinctly:
ecstatic victim of my second sight,
snakes follow me striking at my feet.
Since then, like the prophets, I greet
the desert and the sea with tenderness:
I laugh at funerals, I cry at feasts,
wine tastes smooth that’s full of bitterness:
and, eyes on the sky, I fall into holes,
and frequently I take facts for lies.
But ‘Keep your dreams!’ the Voice consoles,
‘Madmen have sweeter ones than the wise!’
Scheme | ABABCDCDEBFGHIJCKCKLLDMDNONO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101101111 11010110 10101011 10010101010 11011111010 101011110 1111011011 101101100010 0101111001 0101010100 011110101 10111111 01001011100 111011011 101111010001 01111010100 1101001011 110101010 0101011101 110110111 11101011 0100011100 1111001111 111111100 0110111011 010011111 11110101 101101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,171 |
Words | 208 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 894 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 200 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:02 min read
- 161 Views
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"The Voice" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5037/the-voice>.
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