The Seven Old Man Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGH IJGK LMNO PQGG RSTU RPGV LWXH GYZA2 GB2ZY C2D2E2W F2GZY G2H2I2Y| City of swarming city full of dreams | A |
| Where ghosts in daylight tug the stroller's sleeve | B |
| Mysteries everywhere run like the sap | C |
| That fills this great colossus' conduits | D |
| - | |
| One morning while along the sombre street | E |
| The houses rendered taller by the mist | F |
| Seemed to be towering wharves at riverside | G |
| And while our stage set like the actor's soul | H |
| - | |
| A dirty yellow steam filled all the space | I |
| I followed with a hero's iron nerve | J |
| To set against my spirit's lassitude | G |
| The district streets shaken by rumbling carts | K |
| - | |
| Then an old man whose yellowed rags | L |
| Were imitations of the rainy sky | M |
| At whose sight charity might have poured down | N |
| Without the evil glitter in his eyes | O |
| - | |
| Appeared quite suddenly to me I'd say | P |
| His eye was steeped in gall his glance was sharp | Q |
| As frost his shaggy beard stiff as a sword | G |
| Stood out and Judas came into my mind | G |
| - | |
| You would not call him bent but cut in two | R |
| His spine made a right angle with his legs | S |
| So neatly that his cane the final touch | T |
| Gave him the figure and the clumsy step | U |
| - | |
| Of some sick beast or a three legged Jew | R |
| In snow and filth he made his heavy way | P |
| As if his old shoes trampled on the dead | G |
| In hatred not indifference to life | V |
| - | |
| His double followed beard eye back stick rags | L |
| No separate traits and come from the same hell | W |
| This second ancient man baroque grotesque | X |
| Trod with the same step towards their unknown goal | H |
| - | |
| To what conspiracy was I exposed | G |
| What wicked chance humiliated me | Y |
| For one by one I counted seven times | Z |
| Multiples of this sinister old man | A2 |
| - | |
| Those who would laugh at my frenetic state | G |
| Who are not seized by a fraternal chill | B2 |
| Must ponder that despite their feebleness | Z |
| These monsters smacked of all eternity | Y |
| - | |
| Could I still live and look upon the eighth | C2 |
| Relentless twin fatal disgusting freak | D2 |
| Trick Phoenix son and father of himself | E2 |
| I turned my back on this parade from Hell | W |
| - | |
| Bedazzled like a double visioned drunk | F2 |
| I staggered home and shut the door aghast | G |
| Shaking and sick the spirit feverous | Z |
| Struck by this mystery this absurdity | Y |
| - | |
| Vainly my reason reached to clutch the helm | G2 |
| The giddy tempest baffled every grasp | H2 |
| And my soul danced in circles like a hull | I2 |
| Dismasted on a monstrous shoreless sea | Y |
Charles Baudelaire
(1)
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