Even When She Walks
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
Even when she walks she seems to dance!
Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes
obedient to the rhythm of the wands
by which a fakir wakens them to grace.
Like both the desert and the desert sky
insensible to human suffering,
and like the ocean’s endless labyrinth
she shows her body with indifference.
Precious minerals are her polished eyes,
and in her strange symbolic nature
angel and sphinx unite,
where diamonds, gold, and steel dissolve into one light,
shining forever, useless as a star,
the sterile woman’s icy majesty.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 27 sec read
- 141 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XXXX XXXX XXAAXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 544 |
Words | 93 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 6 |
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"Even When She Walks" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/4918/even-when-she-walks>.
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