Le Cygne (the Swan) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBC DEFF GGGG HGHG IJKJ HFHF CFCC FGHG LGLG MGMG JCJC BGBG FHFH N J LJJG MFMC GGHJ HGOG ICCJ CJ P C JC MQMG MGFG GGLG BGFC CGBG GRFG M N J BCBC GFGF FGFG MCMC CCCC ML L F F SGSG CGCG MBMB M M MMMM FMFM F F BMBM SCF| Victor Hugo | A |
| - | |
| I | - |
| - | |
| Andromaque je pense vous Ce petit fleuve | B |
| Pauvre et triste miroir o jadis resplendit | C |
| L'immense majest de vos douleurs de veuve | B |
| Ce Simo s menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit | C |
| - | |
| A f cond soudain ma m moire fertile | D |
| Comme je traversais le nouveau Carrousel | E |
| Le vieux Paris n'est plus la forme d'une ville | F |
| Change plus vite h las que le coeur d'un mortel | F |
| - | |
| Je ne vois qu'en esprit tout ce camp de baraques | G |
| Ces tas de chapiteaux bauch s et de f ts | G |
| Les herbes les gros blocs verdis par l'eau des flaques | G |
| Et brillant aux carreaux le bric brac confus | G |
| - | |
| L s' talait jadis une m nagerie | H |
| L je vis un matin l'heure o sous les cieux | G |
| Froids et clairs le Travail s' veille o la voirie | H |
| Pousse un sombre ouragan dans l'air silencieux | G |
| - | |
| Un cygne qui s' tait vad de sa cage | I |
| Et de ses pieds palm s frottant le pav sec | J |
| Sur le sol raboteux tra nait son blanc plumage | K |
| Pr s d'un ruisseau sans eau la b te ouvrant le bec | J |
| - | |
| Baignait nerveusement ses ailes dans la poudre | H |
| Et disait le coeur plein de son beau lac natal | F |
| Eau quand donc pleuvras tu quand tonneras tu foudre | H |
| Je vois ce malheureux mythe trange et fatal | F |
| - | |
| Vers le ciel quelquefois comme l'homme d'Ovide | C |
| Vers le ciel ironique et cruellement bleu | F |
| Sur son cou convulsif tendant sa t te avide | C |
| Comme s'il adressait des reproches Dieu | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| Paris change mais rien dans ma m lancolie | F |
| N'a boug palais neufs chafaudages blocs | G |
| Vieux faubourgs tout pour moi devient all gorie | H |
| Et mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs | G |
| - | |
| Aussi devant ce Louvre une image m'opprime | L |
| Je pense mon grand cygne avec ses gestes fous | G |
| Comme les exil s ridicule et sublime | L |
| Et rong d'un d sir sans tr ve et puis vous | G |
| - | |
| Andromaque des bras d'un grand poux tomb e | M |
| Vil b tail sous la main du superbe Pyrrhus | G |
| Aupr s d'un tombeau vide en extase courb e | M |
| Veuve d'Hector h las et femme d'H l nus | G |
| - | |
| Je pense la n gresse amaigrie et phtisique | J |
| Pi tinant dans la boue et cherchant l'oeil hagard | C |
| Les cocotiers absents de la superbe Afrique | J |
| Derri re la muraille immense du brouillard | C |
| - | |
| quiconque a perdu ce qui ne se retrouve | B |
| Jamais jamais ceux qui s'abreuvent de pleurs | G |
| Et t tent la Douleur comme une bonne louve | B |
| Aux maigres orphelins s chant comme des fleurs | G |
| - | |
| Ainsi dans la for t o mon esprit s'exile | F |
| Un vieux Souvenir sonne plein souffle du cor | H |
| Je pense aux matelots oubli s dans une le | F |
| Aux captifs aux vaincus bien d'autres encor | H |
| - | |
| The Swan | N |
| - | |
| - | |
| To Victor Hugo | J |
| - | |
| - | |
| I | - |
| - | |
| Andromache I think of you That little stream | L |
| That mirror poor and sad which glittered long ago | J |
| With the vast majesty of your widow's grieving | J |
| That false Simois swollen by your tears | G |
| - | |
| Suddenly made fruitful my teeming memory | M |
| As I walked across the new Carrousel | F |
| Old Paris is no more the form of a city | M |
| Changes more quickly alas than the human heart | C |
| - | |
| I see only in memory that camp of stalls | G |
| Those piles of shafts of rough hewn cornices the grass | G |
| The huge stone blocks stained green in puddles of water | H |
| And in the windows shine the jumbled bric a brac | J |
| - | |
| Once a menagerie was set up there | H |
| There one morning at the hour when Labor awakens | G |
| Beneath the clear cold sky when the dismal hubbub | O |
| Of street cleaners and scavengers breaks the silence | G |
| - | |
| I saw a swan that had escaped from his cage | I |
| That stroked the dry pavement with his webbed feet | C |
| And dragged his white plumage over the uneven ground | C |
| Beside a dry gutter the bird opened his beak | J |
| - | |
| Restlessly bathed his wings in the dust | C |
| And cried homesick for his fair native lake | J |
| 'Rain when will you fall Thunder when will you roll ' | - |
| I see that hapless bird that strange and fatal myth | P |
| - | |
| Toward the sky at times like the man in Ovid | C |
| Toward the ironic cruelly blue sky | - |
| Stretch his avid head upon his quivering neck | J |
| As if he were reproaching God | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| Paris changes but naught in my melancholy | M |
| Has stirred New palaces scaffolding blocks of stone | Q |
| Old quarters all become for me an allegory | M |
| And my dear memories are heavier than rocks | G |
| - | |
| So before the Louvre an image oppresses me | M |
| I think of my great swan with his crazy motions | G |
| Ridiculous sublime like a man in exile | F |
| Relentlessly gnawed by longing and then of you | G |
| - | |
| Andromache base chattel fallen from the embrace | G |
| Of a mighty husband into the hands of proud Pyrrhus | G |
| Standing bowed in rapture before an empty tomb | L |
| Widow of Hector alas and wife of Helenus | G |
| - | |
| I think of the negress wasted and consumptive | B |
| Trudging through muddy streets seeking with a fixed gaze | G |
| The absent coco palms of splendid Africa | F |
| Behind the immense wall of mist | C |
| - | |
| Of whoever has lost that which is never found | C |
| Again Never Of those who deeply drink of tears | G |
| And suckle Pain as they would suck the good she wolf | B |
| Of the puny orphans withering like flowers | G |
| - | |
| Thus in the dim forest to which my soul withdraws | G |
| An ancient memory sounds loud the hunting horn | R |
| I think of the sailors forgotten on some isle | F |
| Of the captives of the vanquished of many others too | G |
| - | |
| - | |
| Translated by William Aggeler | M |
| - | |
| The Swan | N |
| - | |
| - | |
| To Victor Hugo | J |
| - | |
| - | |
| Andromache This shallow stream the brief | B |
| Mirror you once so grandly overcharged | C |
| With your vast majesty of widowed grief | B |
| This lying Simois your tears enlarged | C |
| - | |
| Evoked your name and made me think of you | G |
| As I was crossing the new Carrousel | F |
| Old Paris is no more cities renew | G |
| Quicker than human hearts their changing spell | F |
| - | |
| In mind I see that camp of huts the muddle | F |
| Of rough hewn roofs and leaning shafts for miles | G |
| The grass green logs stagnating in the puddle | F |
| Where bric a brac lay glittering in piles | G |
| - | |
| Once a menagerie parked there | M |
| And there it chanced one morning when from slumber freed | C |
| Labour stands up and Transport through still air | M |
| Rumbles its sombre hurricane of speed | C |
| - | |
| A swan escaped its cage and as its feet | C |
| With finny palms on the harsh pavement scraped | C |
| Trailing white plumage on the stony street | C |
| In the dry gutter for fresh water gaped | C |
| - | |
| Nervously bathing in the dust in wonder | M |
| It asked remembering its native stream | L |
| 'When will the rain come down When roll the thunder ' | - |
| I see it now strange myth and fatal theme | L |
| - | |
| Sometimes like Ovid's wretch towards the sky | - |
| Ironically blue with cruel smile | F |
| Its neck convulsive reared its head on high | - |
| As though it were its Maker to revile | F |
| - | |
| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| Paris has changed but in my grief no change | S |
| New palaces and scaffoldings and blocks | G |
| To me are allegories nothing strange | S |
| My memories are heavier than rocks | G |
| - | |
| Passing the Louvre one image makes me sad | C |
| That swan like other exiles that we knew | G |
| Grandly absurd with gestures of the mad | C |
| Gnawed by one craving Then I think of you | G |
| - | |
| Who fell from your great husband's arms to be | M |
| A beast of freight for Pyrrhus and for life | B |
| Bowed by an empty tomb in ecstasy | M |
| Great Hector's widow Helenus's wife | B |
| - | |
| I think too of the starved and phthisic negress | M |
| Tramping the mud who seeks with haggard eye | - |
| The palms of Africa and for some egress | M |
| Out of this great black wall of foggy sky | - |
| - | |
| Of those who've lost what they cannot recover | M |
| Of those who slake with tears their lonely hours | M |
| And milk the she wolf Sorrow for their mother | M |
| And skinny orphans withering like flowers | M |
| - | |
| So in the forest of my soul's exile | F |
| Remembrance winds his horn as on he rides | M |
| I think of sailors stranded on an isle | F |
| Captives and slaves and many more besides | M |
| - | |
| - | |
| Translated by Roy Campbell | F |
| - | |
| Le Cygne | F |
| - | |
| I | - |
| - | |
| Andromache of thee I think and of | B |
| the dreary streamlet where through exiled years | M |
| shone the vast grandeur of thy widow's love | B |
| that false Simois brimmed with royal tears | M |
| - | |
| poured like the Nile across my memory strange | S |
| as past the Louvre new I strolled apart | C |
| Ol | F |
Charles Baudelaire
(1)
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About Le Cygne (the Swan)
Le Cygne (the Swan) is a poem by Charles Baudelaire. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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