Analysis of Invitation to a journey
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
My sister, my dear
Consider how fair,
Together to live it would be!
Down yonder to fly
To love, till we die,
In the land which resembles thee.
Those suns that rise
'Neath erratic skies,
—No charm could be like unto theirs—
So strange and divine,
Like those eyes of thine
Which glow in the midst of their tears.
There, all is order and loveliness,
Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
The tables and chairs,
Polished bright by the years,
Would decorate sweetly our rooms,
And the rarest of flowers
Would twine round our bowers
And mingle their amber perfumes:
The ceilings arrayed,
And the mirrors inlaid,
This Eastern splendour among,
Would furtively steal
O'er our souls, and appeal
With its tranquillous native tongue.
There, all is order and loveliness,
Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
In the harbours, peep,
At the vessels asleep
(Their humour is always to roam),
Yet it is but to grant
Thy smallest want
From the ends of the earth that they come,
The sunsets beam
Upon meadow and stream,
And upon the city entire
'Neath a violet crest,
The world sinks to rest,
Illumed by a golden fire.
There, all is order and loveliness,
Luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
Scheme | xxabbaccdeed CC dxfggfhhijji CC kkxxxxllmnnm CC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Song |
Metre | 11011 01011 01011111 11011 11111 00110101 1111 10101 11111101 11001 11111 11001111 1111001 100101 01001 101101 11010101 0010110 1111010 01011001 01001 00101 110101 11001 10101001 111101 1111001 100101 0011 101001 111111 111111 1101 101101111 011 01101 001010010 101001 01111 1101010 1111001 100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,166 |
Words | 232 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 2, 12, 2, 12, 2 |
Lines Amount | 42 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 152 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
About this poem
“Baudelaire, like all born poets, from the start possessed a form and style of which he was master…” Théophile Gautier.
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"Invitation to a journey" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/185118/invitation-to-a-journey>.
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