Le Flacon (the Perfume Flask) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB AABB CCAA DDCC AAEE AAEE CCAA F ACBC BGCH CCBB CCCI CBAE AAEB JCAB A F CCCC BBCC BBBB CCCC EEBB KKAA BBBB E F CCBB BBBB EABB AADD BBBB LLEE BBAA E L CCBB MMBB EENN CCEE EEOO PPBB CCAA CII est de forts parfums pour qui toute mati re | A |
Est poreuse On dirait qu'ils p n trent le verre | A |
En ouvrant un coffret venu de l'Orient | B |
Dont la serrure grince et rechigne en criant | B |
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Ou dans une maison d serte quelque armoire | A |
Pleine de l' cre odeur des temps poudreuse et noire | A |
Parfois on trouve un vieux flacon qui se souvient | B |
D'o jaillit toute vive une me qui revient | B |
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Mille pensers dormaient chrysalides fun bres | C |
Fr missant doucement dans les lourdes t n bres | C |
Qui d gagent leur aile et prennent leur essor | A |
Teint s d'azur glac s de rose lam s d'or | A |
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Voil le souvenir enivrant qui voltige | D |
Dans l'air troubl les yeux se ferment le Vertige | D |
Saisit l' me vaincue et la pousse deux mains | C |
Vers un gouffre obscurci de miasmes humains | C |
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II la terrasse au bord d'un gouffre s culaire | A |
O Lazare odorant d chirant son suaire | A |
Se meut dans son r veil le cadavre spectral | E |
D'un vieil amour ranci charmant et s pulcral | E |
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Ainsi quand je serai perdu dans la m moire | A |
Des hommes dans le coin d'une sinistre armoire | A |
Quand on m'aura jet vieux flacon d sol | E |
D cr pit poudreux sale abject visqueux f l | E |
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Je serai ton cercueil aimable pestilence | C |
Le t moin de ta force et de ta virulence | C |
Cher poison pr par par les anges liqueur | A |
Qui me ronge la vie et la mort de mon coeur | A |
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The Perfume Flask | F |
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There are strong perfumes for which all matter | A |
Is porous One would say they go through glass | C |
On opening a coffer that has come from the East | B |
Whose creaking lock resists and grates | C |
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Or in a deserted house some cabinet | B |
Full of the Past's acrid odor dusty and black | G |
Sometimes one finds an antique phial which remembers | C |
Whence gushes forth a living soul returned to life | H |
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Many thoughts were sleeping death like chrysalides | C |
Quivering softly in the heavy shadows | C |
That free their wings and rise in flight | B |
Tinged with azure glazed with rose spangled with gold | B |
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That is the bewitching souvenir which flutters | C |
In the troubled air the eyes close Dizziness | C |
Seizes the vanquished soul pushes it with both hands | C |
Toward a darkened abyss of human pollution | I |
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He throws it down at the edge of an ancient abyss | C |
Where like stinking Lazarus tearing wide his shroud | B |
There moves as it wakes up the ghostly cadaver | A |
Of a rancid old love charming and sepulchral | E |
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Thus when I'll be lost to the memory | A |
Of men when I shall be tossed into the corner | A |
Of a dismal wardrobe a desolate old phial | E |
Decrepit cracked slimy dirty dusty abject | B |
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Delightful pestilence I shall be your coffin | J |
The witness of your strength and of your virulence | C |
Beloved poison prepared by the angels Liqueur | A |
That consumes me O the life and death of my heart | B |
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Translated by William Aggeler | A |
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The Flask | F |
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Perfumes there are which through all things can pass | C |
And make all matter porous even glass | C |
Old coffers from the Orient brought whose locks | C |
Grind sullenly when opening the box | C |
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Or in an empty house some ancient chest | B |
Where time and dust and gloom were long compressed | B |
May yield a flask where memory survives | C |
And a soul flashes into future lives | C |
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A thousand thoughts funereal larvae laid | B |
Shuddering softly under palls of shade | B |
May suddenly their soaring wings unfold | B |
Stained azure glazed with rose or filmed with gold | B |
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Intoxicating memory now flies | C |
Into the dusk and makes us close our eyes | C |
Vertigo draws the spirit which it grips | C |
Towards some dark miasma of eclipse | C |
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Beside an ancient pit he makes her fall | E |
Where Lazarus sweet scented tears his pall | E |
And wakes the spectral corpse of some now cold | B |
Rancid sepulchral love he knew of old | B |
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So when I'm lost to human memory thrown | K |
In some old gloomy chest to fie alone | K |
A poor decrepit flask cracked abject crusty | A |
With dirt opaque and sticky damp and dusty | A |
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I'll be your pall and shroud beloved pest | B |
The witness of your venom and its test | B |
Dear poison angel brewed with deadly art | B |
Life death and dear corrosion of my heart | B |
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Translated by Roy Campbell | E |
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The Perfume Flask | F |
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All matter becomes porous to certain scents they pass | C |
Through everything it seems they even go through glass | C |
When opening some old trunk brought home from the far east | B |
That scolds feeling the key turned and the lid released | B |
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Some wardrobe in a house long uninhabited | B |
Full of the powdery odors of moments that are dead | B |
At times distinct as ever an old flask will emit | B |
Its perfume and a soul comes back to live in it | B |
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Dormant as chrysalides a thousand thoughts that lie | E |
In the thick shadows pulsing imperceptibly | A |
Now stir now struggle forth now their cramped wings unfold | B |
Tinted with azure lustred with rose sheeted with gold | B |
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Oh memories how you rise and soar and hover there | A |
The eyes close dizziness in the moth darkened air | A |
Seizes the drunken soul and thrusts it toward the verge | D |
Where mistily all human miasmas float and merge | D |
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Of a primeval gulf and drops it to the ground | B |
There where like Lazarus rising his grave clothes half unwound | B |
And odorous a cadaver from its sleep has stirred | B |
An old and rancid love charming and long interred | B |
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Thus when I shall be lost from sight thus when all men | L |
Forget me in the dark and dusty corner then | L |
Of that most sinister cupboard where the living pile | E |
The dead when an old flask cracked sticky abject vile | E |
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I lie at length still still sweet pestilence of my heart | B |
As to what power thou hast how virulent thou art | B |
I shall bear witness safe shall thy dear poison be | A |
Thou vitriol of the gods I thou death and life of me | A |
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Translated by Edna St Vincent Millay | E |
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Le Flacon | L |
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so keen some fragrances they freely pass | C |
all barriers they would pierce a wall of glass | C |
unlatch a coffer from the Orient | B |
whose creaking hinge will scarcely grant consent | B |
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or cupboard in an empty house where murk | M |
sharp smells and cobwebs of a century lurk | M |
thou'lt find perhaps a flask that holds a host | B |
of memories free perchance a living ghost | B |
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crushed in the gloom a thousand keepsakes lay | E |
like coffined larvae there which quivering grey | E |
released at last arise on soaring wing | N |
rose flushed or azure golden glittering | N |
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and swirling memories mount to thrill and tease | C |
our closing eyes we reel in murk as these | C |
grapple amain and hurl the quailing soul | E |
down to a Pit where human odours roll | E |
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and fell it on the brink that waits for all | E |
where bursting Lazarus like its rotted pall | E |
stirs and awakes the spectral visage of | O |
a charming fusty weird forgotten love | O |
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so when Oblivion blots my memory dim | P |
and in a corner of a cupboard grim | P |
I like cast off a sorry flask and old | B |
crackled and dusty viscous green with mould | B |
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I'll be thy coffin lovely pestilence | C |
I'll prove thy power and thy virulence | C |
dear poison brewed by angels dulcet fire | A |
I've drunk my life my death my heart's desire | A |
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Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks | C |
Charles Baudelaire
(1)
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