The aural
Our poem mentions auditory impressions in three of its lines (36 & 39-40). To juxtapose them: “plaisamment murmurantes – un doux bruit somnolent – en son gravement lent” brings out a feature, which was very deliberately introduced, the abun-dance of the nasal phonemes. Their sequence as a whole is: agencer – maints – plantes – odorantes – fontaines – décorantes – embellissaient – plaisamment – murmurantes – gentille – invention – conduire – pente – un – somnolent – en – son – gravement – lent – maint – jardin – plaisance.
The effect of such recurrence is to underline the meaning of the words, when the poet stresses the permanence of the little music made by the stream.23 Moreover, he does not content himself with either toujours or continuel, but conjoins the two, highly redundant words. Not to mention the internal echo in mur/mur/a
Which brings up the rhyming and other sound effects in the segment analyzed here.