Analysis of Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)
Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,
Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat
And full of bitter summer, but more sweet
To thee than gleanings of a northern shore
Trod by no tropic feet?
For always thee the fervid languid glories
Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies;
Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs
Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,
The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave
That knows not where is that Leucadian grave
Which hides too deep the supreme head of song.
Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,
The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear
Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,
Blind gods that cannot spare.
Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,
Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us:
Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,
Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other
Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime;
The hidden harvest of luxurious time,
Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;
And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep
Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;
And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,
Seeing as men sow men reap.
O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,
That were athirst for sleep and no more life
And no more love, for peace and no more strife!
Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping
Spirit and body and all the springs of song,
Is it well now where love can do no wrong,
Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang
Behind the unopening closure of her lips?
Is it not well where soul from body slips
And flesh from bone divides without a pang
As dew from flower-bell drips?
It is enough; the end and the beginning
Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.
O hand unclasp'd of unbeholden friend,
For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning,
No triumph and no labour and no lust,
Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.
O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught,
Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night
With obscure finger silences your sight,
Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought,
Sleep, and have sleep for light.
Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,
Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,
Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet
Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover,
Such as thy vision here solicited,
Under the shadow of her fair vast head,
The deep division of prodigious breasts,
The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,
The weight of awful tresses that still keep
The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests
Where the wet hill-winds weep?
Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?
O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom,
Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom?
What of despair, of rapture, of derision,
What of life is there, what of ill or good?
Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood?
Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours,
The faint fields quicken any terrene root,
In low lands where the sun and moon are mute
And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers
At all, or any fruit?
Alas, but though my flying song flies after,
O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet
Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet,
Some dim derision of mysterious laughter
From the blind tongueless warders of the dead,
Scheme | ABBACCDEEDE FGGFHHIJKIK JLLJMMNOONO IPPQIIRSSRS QTTQUUVWWVW JEEJXXXOOXO YMMYXXZ1 1 Z1 JEEJX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111110 1011110111 1101101101 1101111110 110101011 1111110111 1111011101 11010010111 0111010111 111110101 111101 1110101010 011100101001 111101001001 101111001 010111111 11111111 1111001111 1101010100 0111000111 1001010101 111101 11011101010 10010111 1101011100 111100111110 101101101 01010101001 1011010011 0111001001 1011110101 0111110111 1011111 11010111 101110111 0111110111 10111110110 10010010111 1111111111 111011111 010110101 1111111101 0111010101 1111011 11010100010 1111111101 111111 11111111110 110011011 1011100101 1101010111 101111101 1011010011 1011010111 101111 111100111110 1001001101 1111101101 11110101010 1111010100 100110111 0101010101 0101110101 0111010111 0101111110 101111 11110101110 110011101111 1111110001 11011101010 1111111111 1011111111 10111101110 011101011 0111010111 01011101110 111101 01111101110 1111010111 10011111 110101010010 101110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,686 |
Words | 639 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 5 |
Lines Amount | 82 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 349 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 80 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 3:12 min read
- 75 Views
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"Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/1277/ave-atque-vale-%28in-memory-of-charles-baudelaire%29>.
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