L'ennemi (the Enemy) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB BBBB CCD EDE C FGHI JKLB EMD BBB D C ANAN OEOE DOD DOD P I DOOD KKBB BOB BBO P C EIEI OQO LLE EOO R C SCSC OEOE DDB BBB B C CBBB TBOB OOB EOO DMa jeunesse ne fut qu'un t n breux orage | A |
Travers et l par de brillants soleils | B |
Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage | A |
Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils | B |
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Voil que j'ai touch l'automne des id es | B |
Et qu'il faut employer la pelle et les r teaux | B |
Pour rassembler neuf les terres inond es | B |
O l'eau creuse des trous grands comme des tombeaux | B |
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Et qui sait si les fleurs nouvelles que je r ve | C |
Trouveront dans ce sol lav comme une gr ve | C |
Le mystique aliment qui ferait leur vigueur | D |
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douleur douleur Le Temps mange la vie | E |
Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous ronge le coeur | D |
Du sang que nous perdons cro t et se fortifie | E |
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The Enemy | C |
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My youth has been nothing but a tenebrous storm | F |
Pierced now and then by rays of brilliant sunshine | G |
Thunder and rain have wrought so much havoc | H |
That very few ripe fruits remain in my garden | I |
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I have already reached the autumn of the mind | J |
And I must set to work with the spade and the rake | K |
To gather back the inundated soil | L |
In which the rain digs holes as big as graves | B |
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And who knows whether the new flowers I dream of | E |
Will find in this earth washed bare like the strand | M |
The mystic aliment that would give them vigor | D |
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Alas Alas Time eats away our lives | B |
And the hidden Enemy who gnaws at our hearts | B |
Grows by drawing strength from the blood we lose | B |
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Translated by William Aggeler | D |
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The Enemy | C |
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My youth was but a tempest dark and savage | A |
Through which at times a dazzling sun would shoot | N |
The thunder and the rain have made such ravage | A |
My garden is nigh bare of rosy fruit | N |
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Now I have reached the Autumn of my thought | O |
And spade and rake must toil the land to save | E |
That fragments of my flooded fields be sought | O |
From where the water sluices out a grave | E |
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Who knows if the new flowers my dreams prefigure | D |
In this washed soil should find as by a sluit | O |
The mystic nourishment to give them vigour | D |
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Time swallows up our life O ruthless rigour | D |
And the dark foe that nibbles our heart's root | O |
Grows on our blood the stronger and the bigger | D |
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Translated by Roy Campbell | P |
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The Ruined Garden | I |
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My childhood was only a menacing shower | D |
cut now and ten by hours of brilliant heat | O |
All the top soil was killed by rain and sleet | O |
my garden hardly bore a standing flower | D |
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From now on my mind's autumn I must take | K |
the field and dress my beds with spade and rake | K |
and restore order to my flooded grounds | B |
There the rain raised mountains like burial mounds | B |
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I throw fresh seeds out Who knows what survives | B |
What elements will give us life and food | O |
This soil is irrigated by the tides | B |
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Time and nature sluice away our lives | B |
A virus eats the heart out of our sides | B |
digs in and multiplies on our lost blood | O |
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Translated by Robert Lowell | P |
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The Enemy | C |
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I think of my gone youth as of a stormy sky | E |
Infrequently transpierced by a benignant sun | I |
Tempest and hail have done their work and what have I | E |
How many fruits in my torn garden scarcely one | I |
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And now that I approach the autumn of my mind | O |
And must reclaim once more the inundated earth | Q |
Washed into stony trenches deep as graves I find | O |
I wield the rake and hoe asking 'What is it worth ' | - |
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Who can assure me these new flowers for which I toil | L |
Will find in the disturbed and reconstructed soil | L |
That mystic aliment on which alone they thrive | E |
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Oh anguish anguish Time eats up all things alive | E |
And that unseen dark Enemy upon the spilled | O |
Bright blood we could not spare battens and is fulfilled | O |
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Translated by Edna St Vincent Millay | R |
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L'Ennemi | C |
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my youth was all a murky hurricane | S |
not oft did the suns of splendour burst the gloom | C |
so wild the lightning raged so fierce the rain | S |
few crimson fruits my garden close illume | C |
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now I have touched the autumn of the mind | O |
I must repair and smooth the earth to save | E |
my little seed plot torn and undermined | O |
guttered and gaping like an open grave | E |
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and will the flowers all my dreams implore | D |
draw from this garden wasted like a shore | D |
some rich mysterious power the storm imparts | B |
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o grief o grief time eats away our lives | B |
and the dark Enemy gnawing at our hearts | B |
sucks from our blood the strength whereon he thrives | B |
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Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks | B |
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The Enemy | C |
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My youth was nothing but a black storm | C |
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns | B |
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores | B |
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once | B |
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I should employ the rake and the plow | T |
Having reached the autumn of ideas | B |
To restore this inundated ground | O |
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees | B |
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And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed | O |
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned | O |
The mystic nourishment that fortifies | B |
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O Sorrow O Sorrow Time consumes Life | E |
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart | O |
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part | O |
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Translated by William A Sigler | D |
Charles Baudelaire
(1)
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