Analysis of The Irreparable
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
Can we stifle the old, long-lived Remorse,
that lives, writhes, heaves,
feeds on us, like a worm on a corpse,
like oak-gall on the oak-trees?
Can we stifle the old, long-lived Remorse?
In what potion, in what wine, in what brew,
shall we drown this old enemy.
greedy, destructive as a prostitute,
ant-like always filled with tenacity?
In what potion? – In what wine? – In what brew?
Tell us, lovely witch, oh, tell us, if you know,
tell the spirit filled with anguish
as if dying crushed by the wounded, oh,
crumpled beneath the horses,
tell us, lovely witch, oh, tell us, if you know,
tell the one in agony the wolf’s already scented
whom the raven now surveys,
tell the shattered soldier! Say, if he’s intended
to despair of cross and grave:
poor soul in agony the wolf’s already scented!
Can we illuminate a black and muddied sky?
can we pierce the shadowy evening,
denser than pitch, with neither day or night,
star-less, with no funereal lightning?
Can we illuminate a black and muddied sky?
The Hope that shone in the Tavern window
is quenched, is dead forever!
How to find without sunlight, without moon-glow,
for the foul road’s martyrs, ah, shelter!
The Devil’s quenched all in the Tavern window!
Adorable witch, do you love the damned?
Say, do you know the unforgivable?
Do you understand Remorse, its poisoned hand,
for which our heart serves as target?
Adorable witch, do you love the damned?
The Irreparable, with its accursed tooth bites
at our soul, this pitiful monument,
and often gnaws away like a termite,
below the foundations of the battlement.
The Irreparable, with its accursed tooth, bites!
- Sometimes on the boards of a cheap stage
lit up by the sonorous orchestra,
I’ve seen a fairy kindling miraculous day,
in the infernal sky above her:
sometimes on the boards of a cheap stage,
a being, who is nothing but light, gold, gauze,
flooring the enormous Satan:
but my heart, that no ecstasy ever saw,
is a stage where ever and again
one awaits in vain the Being with wings of gauze!
Scheme | AbcdAefgfeHihjHklmnkOpqpOhrhrhStuvSWxqxWYz1 Ry2 3 4 5 2 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110011101 1111 111101101 1111011 1110011101 0110011011 11111100 100101010 111110100 0110011011 11101111111 10101110 1110110101 1001010 11101111111 10101000101010 1010101 101010111010 1011101 1101000101010 110100010101 111010010 1011110111 1111110 110100010101 0111001010 1111010 1110110111 101110110 01011001010 0100111101 111100100 1101011101 111011110 0100111101 00100011111 11011100100 0101011010 01001010100 00100011111 011011011 1110100100 110101001001 000101010 011011011 01011101111 10001010 11111100101 101110001 101010101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,982 |
Words | 355 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 50 |
Lines Amount | 50 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,556 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 353 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 145 Views
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"The Irreparable" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/5022/the-irreparable>.
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