The Voyage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDEDEEFEEGDGDHCEC EIEI EJKGILMLEEEECNCNEEEE OEDE ELELEEEEEHPEPQEEEERE EEDRDRELELEEEEEEEESH EETEUEVEVEWXWYEYEEEE EJEJEHZEZEA2B2EC2EFE FD2E2D2E2EF2EF2EG2EG 2EED2H2HECECEEEE| Maxime du Camp | A |
| I | - |
| For the child in love with globe and stamps | B |
| the universe equals his vast appetite | C |
| Ah How great the world is in the light of the lamps | B |
| In the eyes of memory how small and slight | C |
| One morning we set out minds filled with fire | D |
| travel following the rhythm of the seas | E |
| hearts swollen with resentment and bitter desire | D |
| soothing in the finite waves our infinities | E |
| Some happy to leave a land of infamies | E |
| some the horrors of childhood others whose doom | F |
| is to drown in a woman s eyes their astrologies | E |
| the tyrannous Circe s dangerous perfumes | E |
| In order not to become wild beasts they stun | G |
| themselves with space and light and skies of fire | D |
| The ice that stings them and the scorching sun | G |
| slowly erase the marks of their desire | D |
| But the true voyagers are those who leave | H |
| only to move hearts like balloons as light | C |
| they never swerve from their destinies | E |
| and without knowing why say always Flight | C |
| Those whose desires take on cloud likenesses | E |
| who dream of vast sensualities the same | I |
| way a conscript dreams of the guns shifting vaguenesses | E |
| that the human spirit cannot name | I |
| II | - |
| We imitate oh horror tops and bowls | E |
| in their leaps and bounds and even in dreams dumb | J |
| curiosity torments us and we are rolled | K |
| as if by a cruel Angel that whips the sun | G |
| Strange fate where the goal never stays the same | I |
| and belonging nowhere perhaps it s no matter where | L |
| Man whose hope never tires as if insane | M |
| rushes on in search of rest through the air | L |
| Our soul a three master heads for the isle of Icarus | E |
| A voice booms from the bridge Skin your eyes | E |
| A voice from aloft eager and maddened calls to us | E |
| Love Fame Happiness Hell it s a rock it cries | E |
| On every island that the lookouts sight | C |
| destiny promises its Eldorado | N |
| Imagination conjuring an orgiastic rite | C |
| finds only a barren reef in the afterglow | N |
| O the poor lover of chimeric sands | E |
| Clap him in irons toss him in the sea | E |
| this drunken sailor inventing New Found Lands | E |
| whose mirage fills the abyss with fresh misery | E |
| Like an old tramp trudging through the mire | O |
| dreaming head up of dazzling paradise | E |
| his gaze bewitched discovering Capua s fire | D |
| wherever a candlelit hovel meets his eyes | E |
| III | - |
| Astounding travellers What histories | E |
| we read in your eyes deeper than the ocean there | L |
| Show us the treasures of your rich memories | E |
| marvellous jewels made of stars and air | L |
| We wish to voyage without steam or sails | E |
| Project on our spirits stretched out like the sheets | E |
| lightening the tedium of our prison tales | E |
| your past the horizon s furthest reach completes | E |
| Tell us what did you see | E |
| IV | H |
| We saw the sand | P |
| and waves we also saw the stars | E |
| despite the shocks disasters the unplanned | P |
| we were often just as bored as before | Q |
| The sunlight s glory on the violet shoals | E |
| the cities glory as the sunlight wanes | E |
| kindled that restless longing in our souls | E |
| to plunge into the sky s reflected flames | E |
| The richest cities the greatest scenes we found | R |
| never contained the magnetic lures | E |
| of those that chance fashioned in the clouds | E |
| Always desire rent us on distant shores | E |
| Enjoyment adds strength to our desire | D |
| Desire old tree for whom pleasure is the ground | R |
| while your bark thickens as you grow higher | D |
| your branches long to touch the sky you sound | R |
| Will you grow forever mighty tree | E |
| more alive than cypress Though we have brought with care | L |
| a few specimens for your album leaves | E |
| brothers who find beauty in objects from out there | L |
| We have saluted gods of ivory | E |
| thrones jewelled with constellated gleams | E |
| sculpted palaces whose walls of faery | E |
| to your bankers would be ruinous dreams | E |
| Clothes that to your vision bring drunkenness | E |
| women with painted teeth and breasts | E |
| juggling savants gliding snakes caress | E |
| V | E |
| And then what then | S |
| VI | H |
| O Childishness | E |
| Not to forget the main thing everywhere | E |
| effortlessly through this world we ve seen | T |
| from top to bottom of the fatal stair | E |
| the tedious spectacle of eternal sin | U |
| Woman vile slave full of pride and foolishness | E |
| adoring herself without laughing loving without disgust | V |
| Man greedy tyrant harsh lewd merciless | E |
| slave of that slave a sewer in the dust | V |
| The torturer who plays the martyr who sobs | E |
| the feast perfumed and moist from the bloody drip | W |
| the poison of power corrupting the despot | X |
| the crowd in love with the stupefying whip | W |
| Several religions just like our own | Y |
| all climbing heaven Sanctity | E |
| like an invalid under the eiderdown | Y |
| finding in nails and hair shirts ecstasy | E |
| Drunk with its genius chattering Humanity | E |
| as mad today as ever or even worse | E |
| crying to God in furious agony | E |
| ' O my likeness my master take my curse | E |
| And the least stupid harsh lovers of Delirium | J |
| fleeing the great herd guarded by Destiny | E |
| taking refuge in the depths of opium | J |
| That is the news from the whole world s country | E |
| VII | H |
| Bitter the knowledge we get from travelling | Z |
| Today tomorrow yesterday the world shows what we see | E |
| monotonous and mean our image beckoning | Z |
| an oasis of horror in a desert of ennui | E |
| Shall we go or stay Stay if you can stay | A2 |
| Go if you must One runs another crouches to elude | B2 |
| Time that vigilant shadow enemy | E |
| Alas There are runners for whom nothing is any good | C2 |
| like Apostles or wandering Jews | E |
| nothing no vessel or railway car they assume | F |
| can flee this vile slave driver others whose | E |
| minds can kill him without leaving their room | F |
| When at last he places his foot on our spine a | D2 |
| hope still stirs and we can shout Forward | E2 |
| Just as when we left for China | D2 |
| the wind in our hair and our eyes fixed to starboard | E2 |
| sailing over the Shadowy sea | E |
| with a young traveller s joyous mind | F2 |
| Do you hear those voices sadly seductively | E |
| chanting Over here if you would find | F2 |
| the perfumed Lotus It s here we press | E |
| miraculous fruits on which your hopes depend | G2 |
| Come and be drunk on the strange sweetness | E |
| of the afternoons that never end | G2 |
| Behind a familiar tongue we see the spectre | E |
| Our Pylades stretches his arms towards our face | E |
| To renew your heart swim towards your Electra | D2 |
| she calls whose knees we once embraced | H2 |
| VIII | H |
| O Death old captain it is time Weigh anchor | E |
| This land wearies us O Death Take flight | C |
| If the sky and sea are dark as ink s black rancour | E |
| our hearts as you must know are filled with light | C |
| Pour out your poison and dissolve our fears | E |
| Its fire so burns our minds we yearn it s true | E |
| to plunge to the Void s depths Heaven or Hell who cares | E |
| Into the Unknown s depths to find the new | E |
Charles Baudelaire
(1)
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About The Voyage
The Voyage is a poem by Charles Baudelaire. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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