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FLOWERS OF FRANCE. 
THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD. 



New ready. 

Flowers of Prance: THE ROMANTIC PERIOD: 
Hugo to Leconte de Lisle: Representative Poems 
of the Nineteenth Century : Rendered, into English 
verse in accordance with the original forms: By 
John Payne: Two Volumes: Uniform with the 
present work. Particulars on application to the 
Hon. Sec, Alfred Forman, Esq, 49 Comeragh Road, 
West Kensington, W. 



In the press: 

1. Days and Nights: a 

Song-Sequence. 

2. Songs OF THE Morrow. 



New original Poems 
by John Payne. 



«/Ik- f...Uji. 



(All rights reserved). 



FLOWERS OF FRANCE: THE 
RENAISSANCE PERIOD: FROM 
RONSARD TO SAINT- AM ANT: 
REPRESENTATIVE POEMS OF 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: 
RENDERED INTO ENGLISH 
VERSE : IN ACCORDANCE 
WITH THE ORIGINAL FORMS : 
BY JOHN PAYNE: IN ONE 
VOLUME. '^ 



LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE VILLON SOCIETY: BY 
PRIVATE SUBSCRIPTION: MDCCCCVH. 



• • • • 

• • • •• 

• • • • • 

• • •• 



r 






1L07 



PRINTED BY B. J. VRTLL^ LKYDEN (HOLLAND). 



CONTENTS. 

£tIENNE DOLET. Page 

Canticle 3 

PONTUS DE TyARD. 

1. A Complaint of a Lover's Life 9 

2. Sonnet to Sleep \ 12 

3. Sextine » 

Pierre de Ronsard. 

1. Love and Spring 17 

2. Upon the Destruction of the Forest of Gastine. ... 21 

3. Sonnets 23 

4. Song for H6Une 25 

5. The Rose 27 

6. The Skylark 28 

7. Odelette 29 

8. Welcome to May 30 

9. To the Hawthorn-Tree 31 

10. Of the Choice of his Barial-Flace 32 

11. Of Growing Old. 36 

12. Farewell to the World 37 

13. Adieu to Life 38 

Joachim du Bbllay. 

1. Sonnets 43 

2. The Winnower to the Winds 46 

3. Of the Inconstancy of Things Mundane 47 

4. New Year's Day 49 

5. Of the Return of the Spring 50 

6. In Praise of his Native Land 51 

7. Of Poets' Immortality 52 

8. Pars PoeUe 54 

Jacques Tahursau. 

Sonnet 59 



▼i CONTENTS. 

RAW BklLXAU. Page 

1. April 63 

2. Sonnets 66 

3. Love and Money 68 

4. The Grasshopper n 

5. Spring's Advent 69 

6. Wine and Rhetoric 70 

7. To the Swallow 71 

8. In Praise of Wine ^ 

9. Of Living GaUy 73 

10. Wealth and Death « 

11. Drinking Song 74 

12. Canzonet 75 

13. The Vintage 76 

14. With a Bouquet on Ash Wednesday 77 

Olivikr de Magny. 

1. Love and Content 81 

2. Sonnets • 84 

3. Canzonet 87 

4* Of Freedom in Love 88 

5. Of Love after Death 89 

AiCADis Jamyn. 

1. Christian Ode 95 

2. Stanzas 96 

3. Canzonets 98 

4. Sonnets 105 

J. A. DE BaSf. 

1. The Poet's Lot 113 

2. Aubade of May 114 

3. Town and Country 115 

4. Springtime 117 

5. Sonnet 119 

6. The Rose 120 

^TIENNE JODELLE. 

Complaint of a Lover's Life 125 

Jean Passeeat. 

1. May Day 131 

2. Villanelle 132 



CONTENTS. vii 

JXAN FaSSKRAT. Page 

3. The Lover and the Grasshoppexs 133 

4. Sonnets 134 

5. Canzonet to his Mistress 137 

6. Song in Dialogue 138 

7. In Wintertime 140 

8. Vernal Ode 142 

Vauqueun ds la Frbsnayk. 

1. Sonnet. 147 

2. Idyl „ 

JKAN DS LA TaILLE. 

1. To his Lady from the Wars 152 

2. The Daisy 153 

3. Canzonet 154 

4. Sonnets from the Wars 155 

5. The Blazon of the Rose ' 158 

6. Love-Sonnets 159 

7. Complaint of Spring 161 

Philippb Dbsportes. 

1. In Praise of a Country Life 169 

2. The Dream 172 

3. Complaint of Spring 173 

4. Canzonet 176 

5. To Liberty 177 

6. Sonnets 178 

7. Diane 180 

8. Cleonice 185 

9. Hippolyte 187 

lo. Ode to Sleep 188 

GiLLBS DURANT. 

1. The Marigold , 193 

2. Canzonet • 194 

Maris db Romisu. 

1. Hymn of the Rose 199 

2. Sonnet 200 

Jean Bbrtaut. 

1. In Defence of Love . . 203 

2. Canzonet 206 



viii CONTENTS. 

JKAN BbRTAUT. Page 

3. Stanzas 208 

4. Complaint for the Death of Henri Quatre 210 

5. Epitaph on Madame Lugol. • 213 

6. Epitaph on Madame and Mademoiselle de Bonrbon . 214 

Guy dk Tours. 

1. To the Grasshopper 219 

2. To his Bower 220 

3. Sonnets 221 

THfiOFHILS DE VlAU. 

Solitude 229 

Saimt-Ajcant. 

1. Solitude 237 

2. Sonnets 242 

3. Sonnets on the Murder of Charles the First, King of 

England 245 



ETIENNE DOLET. 



6TIENNE DOLET. 



CANTICLE. 1 

Though in my need the world abandon me 
And of His grace though God do not decree 
That once again my foes should set me free. 
As of my will, 

Shall I at heart make mourning therefore still 
And of regrets keep store and measure fill? 
Certes, not so: to heaven look up I will, 
Sans other care. 

Up, then, my soul! The feeble flesh forswear 
And unto God, thy keeper debonair, 
Withdraw thyself, as to thy fortress fair 
And thy strong place! 

Let not the flesh have mastery of thy case 
Nor without cease regrets to thee retrace. 
Of its estate of sufferance and misgrace 
Still making moan. 

The fashion of the flesh o'erwell is known; 
No end fore'er it maketh with its woen; 
For full small matter doth it greet and groan 
On wailful wise. 

< Said to haye been composed by ^tienne Dolet shortly before 
his executioii for heresy, August 3, 1546. 



&TIENNE DOLET. 

Its proper sufferance still it magnifies, 
Debating all on over-angry guise; 
In vain regrets its only solace lies, 
Without allay. 

But what avail despairing and dismay? 
The body sore it irketh, sooth to say, 
In durance vile so many a weary day 
Enmured to be. 



Nay, some regret must body young aby. 
When needs in prison dour it still must sigh. 
Remembering all the pleasant time past by, 
Both day and night. 

Of goods and honours to the worldly wight 
To see himself bereft 'tis sore despite. 
For a glass broken or a cause as light 
Or none at all. 

For a good heart full sore it is, withal. 
Without default to find himself in thrall ; 
And into anger therefore doth he fall 
Full oft and rage. 

The stoutest soul must suffer sore, though sage 
And wise it be past any of its age, 
From the sweet sight forshut to be in cage 
Of kith and kin. 

These of the foolish flesh the sorrows bin. 
The weakling body's troubles and chagrin. 
Lament all unavailing fjounded in 
And witless woe. 



J&TIENNE DOLET. 

But thoUy that the Eternal's word dost know, 
My soul, ensue the foolish flesh no mo', 
But upon Him, from Whom all blessings flow, 
Let thy hope rest! 

If of vain men the flesh may be opprest, 
O'er thee, my soul, yet have they no behest: 
Do but thy due, witii eyes to heaven addrest: 
There be thy trust ! 

Come soon or late, the body shall be dust. 
For all to death this tribute render must: 
None can ward that ofl*, do he what he lust; 
We all must die. 

This flesh, indeed, corruption must aby; 
Yet thou, my soul, thou shalt not surely die. 
But flower with God for ever in the sky. 
Of His great grace ! 

Do thou His will, which is that thou apace 
The flesh o'ercome and leave the body base. 
So mount and in His heavenly dwelling-place 
Be day and night. 

Up, up to heaven, an if thou take delight 
In His commands. Who all good souls aright 
Leadeth and guideth and each froward wight 
Bringeth to nil! 

In verses brief hath He declared His will 
That, if the world to us be thrawn and ill. 
Tormenting us sans rhyme and reason still. 
On many a kind, 



£tienne dolet. 

Yet that no man withal should be lepinedl. 
But bear his evil with a constant mind 
And to God's hand, that hand so strong and kind. 
Himself conmiit. 



This the sole point that pleasures every wit. 
The sole point is that doth with wisdom sit. 
For that Grod's will accomplished is in it, 
Patience submiss. 

This gotten, other science none, ywis, 
To bear with human folly needed is; 
All iUs are nought, all dolour, if on this 
The spirit found. 

No ill there is that can the soul confound. 
If patience in it only be profound; 
In patience there's no good but doth abound. 
Nor solacement 

One never heareth patience make lament; 
Furnished withal, the spright is ne'er foispent; 
Thou in Thy proper virtues hast it blent, 
God of all might! 

A virtuous heart, with noble patience stored. 
Ne'er boweth down beneath ill fortune's sword, 
Victorious ever, never £a.te-outwarred. 
To all resigned. 

Up, then, my soul! Approve thy constant kind; 

Let thine assurance in thy need appear. 
Each valiant heart, each battle-tempered mind 

Hath to the death maintained its constant cheer. 



PONTUS DE TYARD. 



PONTUS DE TYARD. 



A COMPLAINT OF A LOVER'S LIFE. 

Years, in my pleasant time of youth, I passed and years, 
Unknowing dole or woe, unknowing sighs and tears; 

For then the thought in me 
Of passion and affect untrammelled was and free. 

Without unease of wit I was in those glad days; 
Frankly on every side I cast my careless gaze; 

And my free will, likewise, 
No less of liberty had than my two free eyes. 

^ut, envious of my ease and my impunity. 

The Gods one day on me an archer set; and he. 

Aim taking at my heart. 
Wounded it passing sore with his envenomed dart. 

The breach, that in my heart, with infinite regret 
Enmartyred, he hath made, draws me to death; and yet 

'Tis on such wise that &iin. 
Though dying, I to live am in immortal pain. 

Might I for somewhat look of solacement some day. 
The hope thereof might yield my torment some allay 

And to my suffering 
With expectation vague some little easance bring. 



lo PONTUS BE TYARD. 

But my sore wounded heart doth lack of power and will 
To dare provision make for this its grievous ill; 

Albe the way it knows 
Whereby it may in brief regain its old repose. 

Behoveth me, quoth Love, the author of my grief, 
If anywhit of hope I cherish of relief, 

A dame unpeered for grace, 
A mortal goddess, wound in such and such a place. 

And to attain her there whereas the stroke were fit. 
Needs must I at her heart aim and her fancy hit; 

That so like dole the fair 
May feel to mine and bum with a like fire of care; 

So by her proper pain she measure may for sure 
How much of dole and teen she causeth me endure. 

Within her grievous gaol, 
And to be healed herself, vouchsafe to heal my ail. 

But what availeth me, woe worth itl to have wit 
Of this the means of cure, if in my puissance it 

Be not to take, alack! 
That, in an instant which my health may give me back? 

All efforts have I used to render less severe 
Her rigour, whom I hold my only goddess here; 

But she a heart so high 
Hath that my efforts one and all it doth defy. 

Oft have I sought, with all the weapons I might wield. 
To move her rigorous heart to gentleness to yield; 

For but too well know I 
Her tears would quench the fires of dole whereof I die. 



PONTUS DE TYARD. ii 

But she is fain to have as much of cruelty 
As loveliness divine, indeed, in her I see; 

And even as she is fair. 
So will she cruel be to me beyond compare. 

The more I do, the more I say, the more I write, 
The more I burn, the more I am her serving-wight, 

The more my grief grows dire. 
The more she doth from me absent her and retire. 

The more her honour dear I hold and hate her ill. 
The more this my annoy to her is pleasing still; 

The more grief grows in me. 
The gladder is her heart, the more content is she. 

An if I seek to break the bonds wherein I pine, 
It is not in my power: nay, if the power were mine, 

My obstinate desire 
Would sufifer me not take the means to quench my fire. 

And that which rendereth still my sufferance more dire 
Is that it serves, alas ! me nothing to desire ; 

For that desire takes life 
When, of all life bereft, I dwell in nought but strife. 

A grim despair the place of hope in me hath ta'en. 
Which, in funereal dole and mad with raging pain, 

Dogs my desire that grows; 
Thus, worse than dead, I live in languishment and woes. 

Since then no man there is in all this wide world's round 
That feeleth dole akin to this my dole profound, 

And since incurable 
It is, to death alone I look to make me well. 



19 PONTUS DE TYARD. 



SONNET TO SLEEP. 

Sleep, father thou of dreams and sire of sweet repose, 
Now that the Night, with its vast cloak of sable shade, 
Hath o'er the air serene a humid covert laid, 
Come, long-desirM Sleep, and these mine eyelids close. 
Thine absence still prolongs, for languishment, my throes, 
Making me feel yet more my sufferance unallayed. 
Come, soothe it; let it be of thee less poignant made; 
With some delusion sweet come mystify my woes. 
Already Silence mute leads on a squadron light 
Of ghosts, that dancing fare beneath the blank blind Night 
Thou only me disdain'st, thy devotee sincere. 
Come, longed-for Sleep, and with thy wings my head surround ; 
And of my faithful hands for thee a wreath shall wound 
Of thy loved nightshade be and of thy poppies dear. 



SEXTINE. 

When Phoebus sweateth all the livelong day, 
I wear)dng go in torments and despites; 
And under Phoebe's sway, the languorous nights 
Are nought for me but sorrow without stay. 
So, for the love of her my lady fair, 
I d3dng go in languishment fore'er. 

Ah, woe is me ! I must the hour fore'er 
Have in remembrance and the fatal day, 
When by the eyes I ta'en was of the fair; 
For nought since then I've gotten but despites, 
Which have of pleasance robbed me and of stay, 
Of gladsome days and of reposeful nights. 



/^ 



PONTUS DE TYARD. 13 

You^ happy lovers, fain would have the nights, 
For pjrolongation of your joys, fore'er, 
With their obscurity, endure and stay : 
I only, if aught please me, tis the day, 
In hope to feed, after my long despites. 
Mine eyes upon the beauties of my &ir. 

But, the sun-eyes encountering of the fair. 
Bedazzled, I into the darkling nights 
Of my despair withdraw and the despites 
Of my sad thought, that travaileth fore'er 
And at each moment of the night and day, 
Within my reasoning spirit maketh stay. 

Alack ! I cannot find a place of stay, 
Such ills I for thy rigours have, my fair; 
For if I bum and scorch the livelong day. 
In tears I am dissolvM all the nights. 
Seeing thee live in rigour thus fore'er, 
Eternally to slay me with despites. 

O soul disconsolate, in thy despites, 
That fain wouldst quit this stead of mortal stay 
And take thy flight to Life etem fore'er, 
Canst thou for any languish who's more fair? 
Yet hope, hope still! For sure these darkling nights 
Shall yet be lightened by some blithesome day. 

Nay, hasten thee, o day, when my despites 
Shall cease before the favours of the fair: 
Change thou the darkness of my doleful nights 
Into the radiance of a joy fore'er. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 



LOVE AND SPRING. 

When this lovesome Spring I see, 

Land and lea 
All in rapture of new birth, 
Now, meseemeth, day above, 

Ay, and Love, 
Babe-like, bom are unto earth. 

Day, that brighter waxeth e'er, 

Still more fair, 
Fresher, maketh sea and shore; 
Ay, and Love, with Cupid's arms 

Girt and charms. 
In our hearts with us doth war. 

Still he sheddeth from all parts 

Fire and darts: 
Everything beneath the sun 
Owns his puissance, fishes, birds. 

Flocks and herds. 
Men and women, all as one. 

Venus, with her conquering child. 

Monarch mild. 
Seated on her chariot's peak, 
Bids her flying cygnets fare 

Through the air. 
Her Anchises to beseek. 



i8 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

Wheresoever her fair eyes, 
Through the skies 

As she fareth, their bright gaze 

Turn, the air, serene but late, 
Sparkles straight 

With a thousand amorous rays. 



Then, descending from her seat. 

At her feet 
Flowers there be a thousand bred; 
Blushing pinks and lilies white 

Blossom bright. 
All among the roses red. 



In this season of desire, 

With love's fire 
All my soul I feel aflare. 
Seeing how the blossom-tide. 

On each side, 
Borrows beauties from my fair. 

When so many flowers I see. 

Bright of blee, 
All the fields enamelling. 
To my mind the hues that grace 

Her fair face. 
White and vermeil-red, they bring. 

When the elm-trees' rugged rind. 

With the twined 
Ivies overgrown, I note. 
Then methinketh to be ta'en 

In the chain 
Of her arms about my throat. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 19 

When I hear, the woods among, 

The sweet song 
Of the buxom nightingale, 
Then I think to hold my dear 

And to hear 
Her sweet voice that heals my ail. 



When some fir-tree straight, some pine, 

Meets my eyne, 
Tall and slender, towering high, 
I myself let cheated W, 

Think to see 
Her sweet shape and swelling thigh. 

When, within a garden-bower, 

I a flower 
Freshly burgeoned see at mom. 
Straight the blossom I compare 

To the fair 
Bud that on her bosom's borne. 



When the sun, from night released. 

In the East, 
Laughii^, shows his golden hair. 
Then meseemeth that I see, 

Before me. 
Rise and shine my lady fair. 

When I smell the meadows pied, 

Far and wide 
All with blossoms thick-besprent. 
Then methinks in herb and halm 

That the balm 
Of her fragrant breath I scent. 



TO PIERRE DE ROySARD. 

Brie^ with lason I oompaie 

Her, mj fur. 
To the SfNTDgtkie; for, in soodi. 
It to flowos docfa life impait 

And m J lieaxt 
Doth from her take stzength and yoodu 



Fain, unto the ripples* trill 

Of aiill. 
Her blond tiesses Fd onknit. 
Weaving in as man j a twine 

Them, in fine, 
As the stream hath waves in it. 



Fain, her evermore to hold. 

As of old, 
God of these lone woods Fd be; 
And as many a kiss Fd give 

Her as live 
Leaves in summer on the tree. 



Lady mine, my only care, 

Come, my fair. 
Look upon this verdant grot 
See, the blossoms to my pain 

Pity deign; 
And thou only reckest not 



Lift, at least, thy lovesome eyes 

Toward the skies; 
See yon pair of turtledoves. 
That, in gentle Nature's name. 

Without shame, 
Ply with bUl and wings their loves. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 21 

We, in honour's name, no less 

Happiness, 
For an idle fear, let go. 
Happier far the birds I rate. 

Free that mate 
And to love no limits know. 

Lose we not our native rights, 

Our delights, 
For these laws that let our loves. 
Let us love, then, I and you, 

And ensue 
Yonder amorous turtle-doves. 

Come, to smoothe my troubled brow. 

Kiss me now; 
Kiss me, kiss me, goddess mine ! 
Let not these our golden days. 

Whilst youth stays, 
Pass to waste in vain repine. 



UPON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 
OF GASTINE. 

Nay, hearken, woodcutter; thy hand a moment stay. 
Lo ! this is no mere wood, that thou dost fell and slay. 
The bl6od that jets beneath thine axe dost thou not mark, 
The life-blood of the nymphs that dwell behind the bark? 
O sacrilegious churl, o murd'rer, if a thief 
One hang for stealing what is little worth, in brief. 
How many racks and pains and stakes and gallowses 
Dost thou, ill man, deserve, that slay'st our goddesses? 
Forest, the woodland birds' high refuge from their foes, 
The solitary stag no more, the light-foot roes 
No more, beneath thy shade shall browse; thy verdant top 



32 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

No more the blazing rays of summer suns shall stop; 
No more the amorous herd, his back against a tree. 
His crook leant by his side, his sheepdog at his knee. 
Plying his four-holed pipe, the lonely woodland ways 
Shall, echoing, compel to sound his leman's praise. 
All shall again wax mute and Echo voiceless be. 
Thou shalt thyself become champaign and over thee. 
In lieu of flickering shade of leafy woods, as now, 
Shalt feel the harrow fare, the coulter and the plough. 
Thy silence thou shalt lose, nor ever, terror-pale. 
Shall Fauns nor Satyrs more revisit this thy pale. 
Farewell, old forest, erst the playground of the breeze. 
Where first I learned t'attune my lyre among the trees. 
Where Phoebus' arrows first and far-resounding rays 
I felt, that filled my heart with wonder and amaze. 
Here, where admiring first the fair Calliope, 
I of her ninefold choir a lover came to be. 
Where for my brows she did an hundred roses pluck 
And of her proper paps Euterpe gave me suck ! 
Adieu, old wood, adieu! Ye holy heads, adieu! 
With flowers and votive gifts, of old, men honoured you. 
Now the disdain you are of thirsting passers by. 
Who, of the sunrays parched, in summer, from on high 
Finding the refuge cool of your green shades no more. 
Upon your murderer's heads reproach and curses pour. 
Adieu, old oaks, whilom the valiant burgher's crown, 
Jove's trees, Dodonian germs, whose boughs, with acorns 

brown 
O'errunning, first vouchsafed the human race to eat, 
Ingrates, who knew not how with gratitude to greet 
The benefits received, nay, very brutes, I trow. 
Who were to massacre their foster-fathers so! 
Ah, how accurst is man, if to the world trust he 1 
How true-spoken, o Gods, is that philosophy, 
Which saith that all which is shall perish, old and new, 
And putting off one form, another shall endue ! 
The Vale of Tempe shall, in time, a mountain-chain 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 23 

And Athos' frowning steep become a spreading plain; 
Old Neptune's self with com shall covered be some day. 
Matter alone abides and forms shall pass away. 



SONNETS. 

I. OF love's despite. 

What profit me my rhymes and my resounding lyre, 
Since day and night I waste my fancies and my pain, 
Loving so fair a face, fool-fashion, all in vain? 
How hapless is the man who sighs for wandesire I 
I weep, I moan, I bum, a martyr, on Love's fire : 
A thousand sonnets still I make, I rack my brain, 
Yet am not loved: my place new suitors ever gain 
And I, I dare not speak the thing which I desire. 
My lady hath a mind in every trickery taught. 
That still another seeks, when one she once hath caught. 
Whenas for her I bum, her fire forthright doth wane: 
But, when I feign myself no more for her aflame, 
She bums for me. Well loved to be of maid or dame, 
Behoveth little love, much promise, ay, and feign. 

2. H^L^NE. 

When you're grown old and sit before the fire at night, 
Devising, as you spin by candle-shine, you'll sing 
The rhymes I made of old and "Ronsard", marvelling, 
Youll say, "my praises sang, when I was sweet of sight." 
No maid of yours, that hears such tidings, but forthright. 
Though half with labour drowsed and wearied, at the ring 
Shall waken of my name and join in hallowing 
Your name, by that my praise with deathless glory dight. 
I shall be underground; my ghost, no more opprest 
By flesh and blood, among the myrtled shades will rest 



24 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

And you before the hearth will be a bowed old wife, 
Regretful for my love and your disdainful pride. 
Live, then, believe me, Uve; nor till to-morrow bide; 
But gather in to-day the roses of this life. 

3. OF CASSANDRA. 

Here be the woodlands, that, in times of Spring, 
My sweet saint with her carols doth delight; 
Here be the flowers, whereon her foot doth light, 
When by herself she passeth, pondering: 
Here be the meads, to which her touch doth bring 
New vigour, when her hand the jewels bright, 
That star the herbage, newly sprung to sight, 
To hide them in her breast, goes gathering. 
Here sing I heard her; there I saw her weep, 
There smile; and there, by her discourse, astray. 
My ravished senses all were led, like sheep. 
Here dance I saw her, stand, sit. — Wellawayl 
'Tis on the loom of such a wandering thought 
That Love the fabric of my life hath wrought. 

4. TO HIS LADY. 

A wreath I send you, that my hand hath bound 
Of blossoms culled and chosen far and wide. 
Had they not gathered been this eventide, 
To-morrow they had fallen to the ground. 
A warning sure let this for you be found 
That those your charms, for all their bloom and pride, 
Ere long, like flowers, will withered fall and bide 
And perish utterly from sight and sound. 
Time passeth by. Time passeth, lady mine, 
Alack! not Time, but we, we pass away 
And soon beneath the stone we must recline; 
Nor of the loves, whereof we speak to-day, 
When we are dead, shall tidings be for e'er. 
Then love me now, what while you yet are fair. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 25 



5. TO THE MOON. 

Thy shining horn, fair moon, I prithee, hide to-night, 
So may Endymion bide for evermore thy swain. 
So on thy breast be he to slumber ever fain, 
So may no sorcerer cast his spells upon thy light! 
Hateful to me is day, and welcome to my sight 
Is dark. By day, the fear of foes doth me restrain; 
But underneath night's veil of dusk I live again 
And here and there at will fare, in the spy's despite. 
Thou know'st, o moon, what power love hath, when at the 

full. 
Pan, with a fleece, of old, availed, of snow-white wool, 
Thy favours to procure. And you, ye stars above. 
The fire that bums in me view with a favouring eye, 
Yourselves as you bethink, your places in the sky 
The most part of you owe to this, — that you did love. 



SONG FOR HfiLfeNE. 

As straitly as the elm is wedded by the vine 

With supple arms and fast. 
Be thy feir arms for bonds, I prithee, lady mine, 

About my body cast. 

So, softly, feigning sleep, let thy fair face above 

My forehead bended be 
And in a kiss, so breathe thy fragrance and thy love 

And thy grace into me. 

Then, on my panting breast leaning thine own, my dole 

To solace and to calm, 
Press thou my neck more close and give me back my soul, 

Using a kiss for balm. 



96 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

Grant me this only boon and by thine eyes I swear. 

That oath so dear to me, 
From thy beloved arms that any other fair 

Shall never do me free; 

But 'neath thy yoke to bend, how rigorous soe'er 

It be, I'll never rue 
And to the Elysian Fields one hour our souls shall bear, 

One bark transport us two. 

There, dead of too much love, beneath the m3rrtle shade, 

Forever shall our eyes 
The olden heroes see, each with his hero-maid. 

Of nought but love devise. 

Anon, among the flowers a-dancing will we go. 

By meadow and by mere; 
Anon, dance-weary, seek where groves their shadow throw 

Of mjrrtles never sere. 

Where the soft Zeph)rr shakes the perfumed sighs of May 

Out on the fluttering breeze. 
Anon the orange-boughs caressing in its play, 

Anon the citron-trees. 

There, without change, unto the pleasant time of Spring 

Th'immortal season cleaves, 
And without toU, earth there from her fat womb doth bring 

Forth all things, fruits and sheaves. 

The holy band, whilom that lovers were, shall wait 

O'er all to honour us, 
Shall welcome us, themselves esteeming fortunate 

To consort with us thus. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 27 

There, in the midst of aU, enforcing us to sit 

Upon the grass in bloom, 
No one of them shall grudge, withdrawing, any whit 

To yield to us her room; 

Not she *, who of a bull, by treachery, whilere. 

Was carried off to sea. 
Nor she *, whom Phoebus saw, a virgin in despair, 

Become a laurel-tree; 

Not that fair twain, who there together sadly go. 

Dido and Artemise, ' 
Nor that fair Greek, ^ to whom thy charms alike do show, 

Yda, and, thy name as these. 



THE ROSE. 

Let us go see, dear, if the rose, 
Which but this morning did unclose 
Her crown of crimson in the sun, 
H!ave not this eventide laid down 
The glories of her purple gown 
And colour peered (save thine) of none. 

Alack, love, in how short a space 
See, now, she hath on the earth's face 
Her beauties scattered, wellaway! 
Ah Nature, true stepmother thou. 
That such a flower dost but allow. 
To live and dure for one poor day ! 

* Enropa. * Daphne. 

> Artemisia, widow of King Mausolus, the renowned model of 
wifely constancy in grief. 

* Helen of Troy. 



aS PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

So, if yoa win bdiere me, dear, 
Whilst Spring yet flowers and life's year 
Is in its ntthest green for yon. 
Cull, cull the roses of your youdi; 
For eld your beauties, without ruth, 
Away, as from the rose, will do. 



THE SKYLARK. 

ShaU any poet dare deny 
Thee praise in verse, dear lark? Not L 
For me, thy ¥nirble I will well 
O'er all the birds to celebrate 
That prisoned are in cages strait 
And all that in the greenwood dweU. 

How goodly thee it is to hear, 
Whenas the fields the ploughers ear, 
When the earth smells of coming Spring 
And blither is for thy sw;eet air 
Than angered for the wound the share 
Delves in its bosom, furrowing! 

As soon as by the morning-dew, 
At break of day, thou'rt sprent anew. 
With babblings of a thousand kinds 
The air thou fillest, wagg'st on high 
Thy wings and hanging in the sky, 
Thy loves thou teUest to the winds. 

Then, dropping down from heaven's height. 
In some green furrow thou dost light, 
Whether to lay thine eggs, God wot. 
Or sit and hatch or seek for food. 
For bringing to thy fledgeling brood, 
Worms, emmets, maggots or what not 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 39 

And ly upon the sward recline. 
With one ear, to that tune of thine 
I hearken, and with t'other one, 
I list the youngling shepherd-maid. 
Beneath some fern's concealing shade, 
Who trills her ditty in the sun« 

And "Happy art thou over men, 
"Thou lovesome skylark," say I then, 
"That fear of nothing hast nor care 
"Nor aye to others' good wast fain 
"Nor ever heartache for disdain 
"Hast suffered of a cruel feir. 

"Indeed, if any care thee fret, 
"It is to sleep, when sun hath set, 
"And with thy songs, the momiiig-mirk 
"When Eos' hands begin to break, 
"The hinds and shepherds to awake 
"And cheer them to their daily work. 

"But I, in sorrow still I bide, 
"For a fair cruel lady's pride, 
"My faith with falsehood who repays 
"And who, to lengthen evermo' 
"The sorry fabric of my woe, 
"New labours still upon me lays." 



ODELETTE. 

Or e'er the pleasant season pass. 
Dear, let us go upon the grass. 
Nor let time idly slip away; 
For lapsing life is still in flight 
And Time, that mells our locks with white, 
Goes fleeting, even as the May. 



30 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

So, whilst our age and heav'n above 
To love invite us, let us love. 
Come, let us reap our ripe desires 
And Love from vein to vein let fare; 
For death incontinent will bear 
Our pleasures off, like passing fires. 



WELCOME TO MAY. 

God keep you, messengers of Spring, 
You, faithful swallows of swift wing. 
Doves, cuckoos, lapwings, nightingale^ 
And all you other warblers wild, 
That, with an hundred carols mild 
Enliven all the leafing dales! 

God keep you, daisies, roses fair. 
And you, bright blossoms, whom to bear 
And by your wonted names to call, 
Must Ajax ^ and Narcissus bleed. 
Balm-gentle, th3rme and aniseed. 
Fair welcome to you, one and all ! 

God keep you, many-coloured crew 
Of butterflies, the honey-dew 
That gather from the grasses sweet, 
And you, bright swarm of bees new-bred. 
That kiss the blossoms gold and red, 
As o'er the meadows still you fleet! 

1 Ajax Telamonius, from whose blood (v. Ovid's Metamorphoses, 
XIII, 397 etc.) the hyacinth is said to have sprang. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 31 

An hundred times and more I greet 
Your happy advent, fair and sweet 
Ah, how I love this time of year, 
This babble sweet of mead and rill, 
Instead of wind and storm, that still 
At home late held me prisoner! 



TO THE HAWTHORN-TREE, 

Hail, bright blossoming hawthorn-tree, 

This fair lea 
Filling thus with leaves a-throng! 
Foot and crownal, stem and bough, 

Clad art thou 
With a wild vine's tendrils long. 

Lo ! two camps of emmets red 

Have their stead 
Taken up thy roots below: 
In the fissures of thy stem, 

Over them. 
Bees are bedded evenso. 

The new songster nightingale, 

Of Love's ail 
Him to solace and allay, 
Suing to his mistress dear. 

Year by year. 
In thy branches makes his stay. 

In thy top he builds his nest. 

All to-pressed. 
Made with down and mosses fine. 
Where his younglings pleasant prey 

ShaU one day 
Be unto these hands of mine. 



32 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

Live, then, pleasant plant of May, 

Live for aye ! 
Axe nor levin, bail nor snow. 
Wind nor rigour of the rime, 

Nay, nor Time, 
With its ravin, lay thee low! 



OF THE CHOICE OF HIS BURIAL-PLACE. 

Caverns and you, cascades. 
From yonder steep arcades 
That downward, valeward, fleet. 
With gliding feet; 



And forests you and hills. 
Runnels and wandering rills. 
That through these meadows stray. 
Hark what I say! 

Whenever death to me 
Heaven and my hour decree. 
Bidding me take my flight 
From kindly light, 

I do forbid them hew 
Out marble, so to view 
My tomb may statelier show 
And fistirer. No; 

No, I will have a tree, 
For marble, shadow me, 
A tree that shall be seen 
Still full of green. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 33 

Yea, let an ivy birth 
Have from my mouldering earth 
And clip me, as I lie, 
With many a ply; 

And let the trellised vine 

About my tomb entwine, 

Shedding, on every side. 

Its shadow wide. 

So, on my festal day. 
Each year, the shepherds gay 
Shall to this grave of mine 
Come with their kine; 

And having oflfered there 
Their due of praise and prayer, 
To th* eyot ^ on this wise 
Shall they devise; 

"How art thou high-renowned. 
Being his burial-ground. 
Of whom the universe 
Chanteth the verse! 

Who in his lifetime ne'er 
Consumed was with the care 
Of honours nor chagrin 
Worship to win. 

Who ne'er professed t'impart 
The necromantic art 
Nor eke the philtres sold 
Of usance old; 

1 He expresses a wish elsewhere to be buried on one of the 
eyots of the Loire. 

3 



34 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

But to our landSy in fine, 
He showed the Sisters Nine, 
Following his tuneful song, 
The meads along: 



For from his lyre he drew 
Such sweet ax^cords and true. 
Us and our fields elect 
With songs he decked. 

Be heaven's manna shed 
For ever on his head 
And those sweet dews that still 
May-nights distill 

Green grasses wall him round 
And waters' murmuring sound, 
These ever fresh and sweet. 
Those live and fleet ! 

Whilst we, still holding dear 
His glory, every year, 
To him, as Pan unto. 
Will honour do." 

Thus shall the pastoral band 
Discourse, with lavish hand. 
Lambs' blood and mUk, withal, 
Outpouring all 

Upon my grave, who, then. 
Beyond the abodes of men. 
Shall be where spirits blest 
Forever rest. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 35 

There neither hail nor snow 
The happy regions know. 
Nor ever on them broke 
The thunderstroke; 



But still on fields and woods 
Immortal verdure broods 
And constant ever there 
Is Springtide fair. 

The care, that harries kings. 
These happy never stings. 
For empire's sake, to work 
Their neighbours' irk. 

They dwell in brotherhood 
And that which they ensued, 
Whilst life on earth they led, 
Still follow, dead. 

Alcaeus' angry lyre 
Shall greet me in that choir 
And Sappho's, that o'er all 
Doth sweetliest fall. 

How those, whose ears partake 
The music that they make. 
Must joy with glad amaze 
To hear their lays! 

Since Sis3rphus his toil 
Their sweetness doth assoil 
And Tantalus forgets 
His torment's frets. 



36 PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

The dulcet Lyre's sole air 
Doth paige the heart of care 
And healeth of despite 

The heark'ner's spright 



OF GROWING OLD. 

When twenty, thirty months, since last 
Venddme I visited, have past, 
My fancy to my native hills 
Goes wandering with remorseful pain 
And to their rocks I thus complain. 
Their woods, their caverns and their riUs; 

"Rocks, though three thousand years, God wot. 
Of age you be, you alter not 
In form or fashion to behold: 
But I, my youth doth ever flee 
And age, that follows after me, 
Transformeth me from young to old. 

Woods, though you yearly, for the shocks 
Of Winter, shed your leafy locks. 
The year, that cometh after, still 
Renews the honours of your head; 
But mine, its tresses once forshed, 
May ne'er regain them, will or nill. 

Caves, when I know you first, my knees 
Were supple; ay, and limber these 
My members, and my hand was stout; 
But stiflfer now my body all, 
Yea, and my limbs are than the wall 
That rings you coldly round about. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 37 

Ye rills, you ripple without end 
And back and forth you bring and send 
Your waters from unwearying urns: 
But I, without a long-made stay, 
That place I fare to night and day, 
Whence never any man returns. 

Yet would I not, for all chagrin 
Of age, be wood and rock, a skin 
To have more tough and by this sign 
The assault of wingfed Time defy : 
For, being thus, not loved had I 
Thee that hast aged me, Lady mine." 



FAREWELL TO THE WORLD. 

(to the seigneur DE VILLEROY.) 

The coming Winter's storms already I forebode. 
Now six and fifty years my head have oversnowed. 
Time is it, Villeroy, both loves to leave and lays. 
To bid the best adieu, the fairest of my days. 
Yet have I lived so well that cark nor anydele 
Regret for Life's delights, at parting, do I feel. 
I've tasted of them all and used them so as wit 
And sense for friends, not foes, did them to me permit. 
Playing my part conform upon the worldly stage. 
In garb and fashion apt unto my time and age. 
I've seen the morning rise, I've seen the evening set. 
All manner weather in, hail, thunder, dry and wet; 
Kings, peoples, come and go I've seen and years a score 
France well nigh at her last I've seen, for dint of war. 
Strife, battle, have I seen, by truce and peace ensued. 
Treaties accorded now, now broken, now renewed. 



SS PIERRE DE RONSARD. 

Unmade and made again: IVe seen that, 'neath the sky, 
All nothing is but chance and hangeth Fortune by. 
The human race their steps by Prudence guide in vain; 
Fate ineluctable her hands ^ doth still enchain. 
Holding her prisoner strait; and all that men propose. 
Sage-fashion, Fortune still doth otherwise dispose. 

Sated, I leave the world, even as a wedding guest, 
Aweary of the feast, betaketh him to rest 
Or some king's banquet-hall departeth with good grace 
Nor recks if after him another take his place. 
IVe run my torch, unmoved, content, if Fate decree, 
To render it to him who follows after me. * 
'Tis Nature's law: thereat to rail is nothing worth; 
Each mortal to this lot still bounden is by birth. 



ADIEU TO LIFE. 

My pleasant youth is passed away; 
Spent is the strength in me to-day; 
Black are my teeth and white my head; 
My nerves are slack and in my veins, 
So cold my body is, remains. 
In lieu of blood, but water red. 

Adieu, my lyre and lasses fair. 
That were my winsome loves whilerel 
Adieu ! I feel mine end draw nigh. 
No pastime of that youth of mine, 
Save only bed and fire and wine. 
To comfort me in age, have I. 

1 i. e. those of Prudence. 

s Life likened to a race, in which the competitors carry torches. 



PIERRE DE RONSARD. 39 

All with infirmities and weight 
Of years astonied is my pate : 
Cares from all quarters bite on me; 
And still, where'er I go or stand, 
I fearful look on every hand, 
Lest Death upon my track I see, 

Death, anytide which may, God wot. 
Bear me where harbours I know not 
What manner Pluto, who an inn 
For all keeps open, high and low, 
Whereas one enters eath enow, 
Bnt whence none ever out might win. 



JOACHIM DU BELLA Y. 



JOACHIM DU BELLAY. 



SONNETS. 

1. IN PRAISE OF A QUIET UFE, 

How happy, friend, is he who all his days is £un 
To live amongst his like and who, without pretence, 
Ambition, envy, fear, to hold him in suspense, 
His humble household doth in quiet overreign! 
The miserable care of unavailing gain 
Usuipeth not his free and undesireful sense; 
And his supreme desire, desire without offence, 
O'erpasseth not his own inherited domain. 
Of other folk's affairs he recketh not nor pelf; 
The chiefest of his hope dependeth on himself; 
His proper court and king, patron and lord is he. 
The man consumeth not his good on foreign shores 
Nor yet adventureth his life in others' wars; 
And richer than he is he would not wish to be. 

2. and 3. THE RUINS OF ROBCS. 

Newcomer, thou that Rome in Rome dost seek 
And nothing dost of Rome in Rome discern. 
These ruined walls, yon arch, yon broken urn 
And tombs it is whereof as Rome men speak. 
What pride, what ruin, see, what wealth, what wreak! 
Behold her, her who 'neath her bondage stem 
The world subdued, herself subdued in turn, 
A prey to Time, that whelmeth strong and weak! 



44 JOACHIM DU BELLAY. 

Rome is of Rome alone the monument, 
Rome only Rome to vanquish competent 
The Tiber sole, that fleeteth to the sea. 
Abides of Rome. — O world's unstableness ! 
That which stands fast of Time destroyed must be 
And that which fleets withstandeth Time's impress. 



Inhuman stars and you, Gods pitiless, 
Despiteous heav'ns and Nature stepmother, 
Whether by order or at hazard err 
This course mundane of constant changefulness. 
Why have your hands erst wroughten with such stress 
To shape this world, that dureth year by year? 
Or why was not of stuff as hard to stir 
The lordly fount of old Rome's palaces? 
I utter not the oft-repeated saw. 
That all beneath the moon by Nature's law 
Is doomed to death and subject to decay. 
But this to say (and let it not displease 
Whoso the case on other fashion sees) 
That this Great Whole will perish, too, some day. 

4. SUUM CUIQUE. 

For those who are in love, let them their loves go sing 
And those who honour Love His name with praises greet; 
Let those who're near the prince proclaim his foes' defeat 
And those who're courtiers boast the favours of their king. 
Those who affect the arts shall praise to science bring; 
The virtuous to men their virtues shall repeat; 
Those who love wine of wine and drunkenness shall treat 
And those shall fables write who've leisure for the thing. 
Those who in speaking ill take pleasure shall missay 
And kindlier folk with jests the time shall pass away; 



JO A CHIM D U BELLA Y. 45 

The valorous upon their valorousness glose; 

Those who vainglorious are themselves for theme shall take 

And flatterers no less of devils angels make : 

But I, who woeful am, I'll plain me of my woes. 

5. TO A DEAD FRIEND. 

At last, after long years of wandering on the strand, 
Where we the sorry sort of courtiers see complain. 
The goal all seek it hath been given thee to attain. 
From poortith's tristful thrall delivered and unbanned. 
We others, left behind on shore, meanwhile, from land 
Unto the boatman deaf our hands stretch out in vain, 
Who chases us afar; for nought but a quatrain. 
The ferryage to pay, alack ! we have in hand. 
So, where, among the shades, the dwellings of the blest, 
The lovers of old time enjoy th'etemal rest. 
Thou with thy lady walk'st, like them, th'Elysian shore. 
Oblivion's long-drawn draught thou drink'st of travails past. 
Heedless of those whom thou hast in life's chains left fast, 
Yet bawling on the quays and tugging at the oar, 

6. TO ANTOINE DE BAIF. 

How blest, Baif, art thou, yea, blest and more than blest 
In that thou foUowest not, deceived, that Goddess blind, 
Whose restless wheel us men now up, now down, doth wind, 
But that blind lad who fills with love the lover's breast ! 
Thou undergoest not a master's stern behest 
And his harsh frown, but art the dulcet thrall resigned 
Of a fair mistress still to suffer, gent and kind. 
By whom thy languishment is lovesomely opprest 
I, in a foreign land, meantime, unhappy wight. 
Grown miserably old, far from my prince's sight, 
Avoiding poverty, indeed, but not, alack! 
Avoiding travail, toils, regrets, annoy and pain, 
Repent me, when too late, of hopes still hoped in vain 
And care importunate, that follows in my track. 



46 JOACHIM DU BELLA Y. 

7. 

Happy whOy having made of travel fair an end, 
Ulysses like or him who gat the Golden Fleece, 
Hath turned him back, fulfilled of usance ^ and increase 
Of wit, his latter days among his kin to spend! 
When shall I see the smoke rise from the gable-end 
Of my poor hamlet? When, oh when shall I in peace 
My lowly dwelling view, whose narrow paddock-piece 
A province, — nay, for me, an empire doth transcend? 
More than th'audacious fronts of Roman palaces 
The homestead, of my sires erected, doth me please. 
Better than marble hard the smooth slate* liketh me; 
Than Latin Tiber more I love yon I-,oire of mine, 
My little Lyr^ ' more than the Mount Palatine 
And Anjou's kindly clime than the air of the sea. * 



THE WINNOWER TO THE WINDS. 

To you, spirits of air, 
That hither, thither fare. 
With pinions still unstayed. 
And in your whispering flight. 
With breathings soft and light. 
Flutter the leafy shade, 

1 U$age^ i. c, experience 

> As used in his native Anjou. 

' Lyrt^ (Li^O the port's native village. 

* A writer in the Morning Post of Nov. 8, 1 906, in the coarse 
of a review of Mr. Wyndham's *Ronsard and the Pleiad", com- 
mits himself to the amazing statement that the original {^Hiureux 
qui comme Ulysse etc,^'') of the above, a respectable, but in no 
way remarkable, example of Du Bellay*s verse, *is perhaps the 
greatest sonnet written and among the greatest of all the written 
things of the world.** 



JOACHIM DU BELLA K 47 

These violets of Spring, 
These lilies, pinks, I bring 
And vermeil roses, eke. 
These roses nesh and new. 
Yet wet with morning dew. 
Your favour to bespeak; 

So you, to wit, this plain. 
This homestead, may be fain 
To fan with breath of balm, 
Whilst in the noontide heat 
I weary me, my wheat 
To winnow, grain from halm. 



OF THE INCONSTANCY OF THINGS MUNDANE. 

No man, till he die. 
Doth happy aby: 
The shifts of blind chance 
Anon in earth's slough 
Abase him and now 
To heav'n him advance. 

The cold sombre night 
With darkness doth dight 
The earth and the skies; 
And yet from heav'n's seat 
It sleep honey-sweet 
Lets fall for the eyes. 

The day, breaking blue, 
To labour light due 
Affordeth; and mom. 
With colour galore. 
The world, sea and shore. 
Doth hang and adorn. 



48 JOACHIM DV BELLA Y. 

When Winter the stem 
The waters doth turn 
To mirror-like stone, 
Unchaining the dole 
Of the winds of the Pole, 
For anguish that moan, 



The earth, with its glad 
Green robe that was dad. 
Grows tristful and bare; 
The Vultumine blast, 
With breath fierce and fast. 
Strips woods everywhere. 



Then Springtime the gay 
To earth doth essay 
Its green to restore, 
Which may not, alack! 
Endure; for soon back 
Comes Winter the frore. 



So, even as Night 
Day follows and light 
Dark follows anew. 
The seasons etem 
Each other, in turn, 
By like law ensue. 

The season of youth. 
Light, fickle, in sooth. 
Is like to the Prime; 
But Summer anon 
And Autumn draw on 
And Winter's sad time. 



JOACHIM DU BELLA V. 49 

How speedy to pass 
Man's life is, alas. 
Of woman that's bom I 
Without seeing day, 
From this world away 
Too often he's torn. 



NEW YEAR'S DAY. 
(to bertrand bergier.) 

The double-fronted sire is here, 
Janus the Good, in whose good time 
The round of the revolving year 
Renews the season of the Prime. 
Thus, then, to new and fair 
Let's change each sad old thought 
And pat the eating care 
Of senseless chance to nought. 

Up, then, from sloth! Why tarry thus? 
Or ever graybeards grown are we. 
Shake off the care that fretteth us, 
O'ercurious of the time to be. 

Anent to-morrow's hap, 

I rede thee, trouble not: 

The Gods have in their lap 

Thy fortune and my lot. 

The coming frosts wilt tarry for 
Of Winter, at the door await 
That is, its heaping snows to pour 
Upon Uiy chin and on thy pate, 
Until thy sinews slack 
Grow weak and stiff and old 
And all thy limbs and back 
A-tremble are with cold? 



so JO A CHIM DU BELLA K 

Enough, enough of fight, my son, 
To the stout Greek his mother sai<k 
Why not, then, merry make anon 
With this and th'other buxom maid? 
Let wine and love unite 
To cheer man's sorry soul. 
The winged years, in their flight. 
Seek Death, which is the goal 

In this dead season of the year, 
When Winter in the land is lord, 
Three joys and four, thy soul to cheer, 
To thee the friendly hours afford, 
Good wine, in cellar penned, 
Bright fire and care-free night, 
A dear, familiar friend 
And mistress sweet of sight, 

Thy cares who ofttimes with her lute 
Shall lull to sleep and with her song, 
And with her pretty prate, to boot. 
Thy nights anon shall make less long, 
As firolicsome abed 
As are the goats that go 
And browse, with bended head, 
Beside the river's flow. 



OF THE RETURN OF THE SPRING. 

(to jean dorat.) 

Already see, June's lightnings chase 
The little-during Spring away ! 
Ripe Autumn treads in Summer's trace 
And Winter frore doth Autumn slay. 



JOACHIM DU BELLA Y. 51 

NathelesSy the moons that flit 
Heaven's damage everywhit 
Repair; but men, when we 
Go down into the deep, 
Whereas our forbears sleep, 
But dust and ashes be. 

Why, then, ensue for ever thus 
The care that fretteth heart and brain? 
Our life's short term forbiddeth us 
Long hope of aught to entertain. 

That which of nights and days 

Our fate to us purveys, 

For profit reckon we. 

What knowst thou if the skies 

Shall grant unto thine eyes 

The morrow's light to see? 

Nay, bid thy lyre give birth to rhyme, 
Whose breath shall echo so in fame 
That thy Vienne, unto all time. 
Shall boast her Dorat's deathless name. 

The year's relentless might. 

In never-resting flight, 

Bears days and months away, 

But not the learned writs, 

The voices of our wits. 

That live and last for aye. 



IN PRAISE OF HIS NATIVE LAND. 

(to the LOIRE.) 

Let who willeth praise and chant 
All the Indian realms can vaunt, 



S» JO A CHIM DU BELLA V. 

All that the Arabian coast, 
Fabled Sicily, can boast ! 
As for me, what while my lyre 
Songs to match with my desire, 
At my bidding, forth will bring. 
My Anjou I fain will sing. 



O thou river of my birth, 
Wheb the last long sleep on earth 
Overcasteth for all time 
Him who sendeth thee this rhjrme, 
When by friendly arms my corse, 
By some gushing rillet's source. 
Not far distant from thy breast, 
Laid is for th'etemal rest, 
On my ashes cold and dead 
Let at least some tears be shed; 
On thy banks the fame of me 
Sounded of thy plashings be ; 
Nor do thou forget her name, 
Who all beauty puts to shame, 
Nor the ditties, which for her 
I, to boot, have chanted here. 



OF POETS' IMMORTALITY. 

Some men through divers dangers woo 
The honours of the conquering sword 
And some by sea and flood ensue 
Labour, to swell their golden hoard; 
This of the palace studieth the report 
And that the wind of favour still doth courts 



JOACHIM DU BELLA Y. 53 

But I, whom dear the Muses hold, 
I hate the honours born to die, 
I hate the cares that make hearts cold, 
I hate the goods for which men vie; 

Nought pleaseth me of that which findeth grace 

In the gross eyes of the vile populace. 

Laurels, from learned foreheads ta'en 
Me fellow of the Gods have made; 
The lusty Satyrs, nymphs that fain 
To follow are through sylvan shade. 
Have caused me love, far from world-haunted waves, 
The sacred horror of their selvage caves. 

In heav'n above I look to soar. 

On pinions hitherto unspread; 

Nor shall it long be ere no more 

This earth by me's inhabited; 
Raised above wish, to yon proud towns, in fine. 
Their base intestine turmoils I'll resign. 

From Ursa to the Blackmoor's Spall, > 
From dawn to night, I'll range the sky. 
To where the Ocean's fountains &11, 
The whitest of the birds that fly; 
Nor shall I fear, leaving those lands of light. 
Thick darkness of the realms of endless Night. 

Of Death, which is the common lot 

Of all, in no concern I stand, 

For that my better part is not 

In danger of his fatal hand: 
Let him fear envy, death, mischance and strife. 
To whom the Gods have given but one life. 

1 VEspauh Maure^ i. e. from the North to the South Pole. 



54 JOACHIM DU BELLA K 

Away with dirge and fiinend strain, 
With marble tombs and pictured woe ! 
Sepulchral honours void and vain 
My ashes shall not seeking go. 
Lest I an hundred years upon the gray 
Grim shores of niggard Acheron should stray. 

% 

Of the vile crowd though unrenowned, 

My name shall not unhonoured be; 

The Sisters of the Two-peaked Mound ^ 

A sepulchre have decked for me, 
A monument upbuilded high with rhyme, 
That shall defy the waves and winds of Time. 



PARS POETAE. 

He, upon whose birth the Muse 
With a favouring eye did gaze. 
On the hopes, that men abuse, 
Never sufifers his heart graze; 

After favours of the great 
Never follows of free will. 
Nor the vain contentious prate 
Of the palace, never still. 

Nought by treasures setteth he 
That admired are of the crowd, 
And the billows of the sea 
By his oars are never ploughed. 



1 Pindms, the Mases. 



JOACHIM DU BELLAY. 55 

Of the pallid-visaged crone * 
Never was his bosom rent, 
Who torments herself alone, 
Others when she would torment. 

Still although his star decrees 
That with Love he live at one. 
Never sleep of slothful ease 
Hath his spirit overwon. 

Still the town to shun he's &in; 
The false city-folk he quite 
In all seasons doth disdain. 
Foes of reason and of right. 

Coliseums opulent. 
Castles builded to the skies. 
Palaces magnificent, 
Tis not these that hold his ^es. 

But the living watersprings. 
Mothers of the little streams. 
With their mossy borderings, 
Curtained 'gainst the noontide beams 

By their screen of trees, whose shade. 
Grateful to the labouring beeves. 
Lets no shaft of sun invade. 
Through their thick and plaited leaves. 

Groves give ear to him and waves 
Tarry, as they speed along, 
Heark'ning, and the hollow caves 
Echo to his voice of song; 



' i. c. Envy, Jealousy. 



S6 JOACHIM DU BELLAY. 

Voice, which age, ensuing age, 
Ne'er to silence may contrive, 
Voice, which, for the future's stage, 
Maketh men themselves survive. 



Lute, from mind that my chagrin 
Blottest, if these hands of mine 
Any share of glory win, 
All the praise of it is thine. 



Maids, where is't ye guide me, where. 
Daughters of the Gods' great sire? 
Whither, whither, virgins fair? 
And you, nymphs, with eyes of fire. 

Shun th'inhospitable shore: 
To your rocky fastness hie. 
Yonder, from the forest hoar. 
Satyrs lewd I see draw nigh. 



JACQUES TAHUREAU. 



JACQUES TAHUREAU. 



SONNET. 

Whether, a-musing, in some woodland way 
Or in the horror of some selvage cave 
Or by the margent of some murmuring wave, 
The air I sunder with my sighful lay; 
Whether Love's canons, pondering, I weigh 
And note the nightingale's complaining stave; 
Whether, my sombre mood to make less grave, 
My fingers o'er my lute I suflFer stray; 
Whereverward these steps of mine I bend, 
Thine image still, divine, with me doth wend; 
So that mine arms, so real it appears, 
I spread to clip thee; but alas, poor wight! 
'Tis but a dream, that drowns me, day and night. 
In the deep sea of my inhuman tears. 



Rtmi BELLEAU. 



r6mi belleau. 



APRIL. 

April, the pride of the days 

And the ways, 
April, fair hope of the fruit. 
Still, in the mothering gown 

Of the down, 
Fostering their youth in the shoot; 

April, the pride of the fields 

And the wealds, 
Thou, that the meadows with flowers. 
Perse and ind, golden and blue, 

Hue on hue, 
Gemm'st with thy life-giving showers ; 

April, the pride of the breeze 

In the trees. 
Pride of the sprites of the air. 
That, in the heart of the brake. 

Weave and make 
Nets to catch Flora the fair ; 

Tis thy soft hand from the tomb 

Of earth's womb 
Looseth and bringeth to birth 
Harvests of perfumes and showers 

And of flowers, 
Balsaming heaven and earth ; 



64 RAMI belle a U. 

Glory of flowerage and green 

Of my queen, 
Thou on my lady's bright hair 
\And on her bosom snow-white, 
\ Day and night, 

Bibfisoms that shedst without spare; 



April, the smile and the grace 

Of the face 
Of Cypris, her breath and her scent; 
Incense of Gods in the sky. 

Who, on high. 
Scenting thy meads, are content; 

Yea, and yon swallows, that fare 

Through the air, 
Harbingers sworn of the Spring, 
Thou 'tis, the courteous and mild, 

The exiled 
Back from their exile dost bring. 

Each of the flowers of the Prime, 

Hawthorn, thyme, 
Eglatere, lily, pink, rose. 
In this sweet season of thine, 

Month benign, 
Open its chalices shows. 



Hearken, how Philomel fair. 

Debonair, 
Trills from her sylvan retreat, 
Broid'ring the murmurous shade 

Of the glade 
Still with her canzonet sweet. 



r£mi BELLEA U. 6i 

*Tis for thy happy rebirth 

To the earth, 
Love blows again, with soft breath, 
The smouldering fire in our veins. 

By the pains 
Of winter nigh dulled unto death. 



In this new season one sees 

How the bees, 
Swarm on swarm, piUaging, fare; 
Flower to flower flitting, they fleet, 

Juices sweet 
Home on their cuishes to bear. 



Coolness and ripening fruit 

And to boot, 
Manna and heavens of blue. 
May boasts and eke, be it said. 

Honey red. 
Over her graces for dew. 

But I, forsooth, I give my voice 

And my choice 
To the month that its lovesome name owes 
To the goddess so frank and so free. 

From the sea, 
Of old, that in bubbles arose. * 

1 April from Greek Aphros^ foam; Aphrodite^ foam-bom. 



66 R&MI BBLLEA U. 



SONNETS. 

1. THE KISS. 

Heaven send me but a kiss, my Kate, (I said) of thee ! 
*Tis nothing but a kiss that I of thee require. 
But small the favour is and yet may serve the fire 
T'assuage, that in the heat of love consumeth me. 
To me forthright thou cam'st, and I, I shook with glee, 
Hoping to have the* kiss, to which I did aspire. 
And kissing, to devise with thee of my desire 
And of the pleasing ail, that is my grief and gree. 
But what didst thou, alack, my mistress? But so much 
As with thy lips* extreme my thirsting lips to touch. 
Incontinent, and then withdrew'st from me again. 
What? Call'st thou that a kiss? Nay, 'twas but, lady mine, 
With me, upon pretence of pleasance, the repine 
Importunate to leave of a joy hoped in vain. 

2. TO SLEEP. 

Come, Sleep, — thy kingdom is not in the skies, 
Nought slumbereth there, — and with the witching dew 
Thy poppies yield, mine eyelids overstrew, 
My brows, my hair, my temples and mine eyes. 
The ills with charms oblivious exorcise. 
That weary me and cause my poor heart rue. 
Which sighs and sorrows, hopeless, still anew. 
And hath no cause to hope on better wise. 
Come, then, to me and with thy pinions' air 
Cool thou some whit the anguish and despair, 
That, without pity, fret me to the bone. 
Nay, if thou lend to me a favouring ear. 
This day, upon thine altars, every year. 
Honey and poppies shall of me be strown. 



RAMI BELLE A U. 67 



3. TO THE MOON. 

Torchbeaxer Moon, sole daughter thou and heir 
Of the vast shades of ample-bosomed Night, 
Thou, that alone in heav'n's bedarkened height 
Uigest thy coursers through the wastes of air; 
Who, at Ay pleasure only, dost forbear. 
With half-dosed eye, to shed thy silver light, 
Then sudden showest full thy vermeil sight 
And the blest radiance of thy visage fair; 
Me, through the shady silence, let there guide 
Thy fires of silver, where my love doth bide. 
Whose beauties rare have ravished all my will; 
Cause in these woods that I, unfeared, may go, 
Vagrant and sole, as thou whiles farest so 
To thy loved sleeper on the Latmian hill. 



4. OF LOVE. 

If what I deem of Love you question, I reply, 
Importunate desires and troubles 'tis, that throw 
The reason off its course, a humour, to and fro 
That ranges in the blood and sets the wits awry. 
Or, if indeed 'tis aught, 'tis what I know not, I, 
That comes I know not whence nor sent by whom I know. 
That feeds I know not how, nor preys upon what foe, 
And maketh itself felt I know not when and why. 
Like to the levin-stroke, blent with the thunder-stones, 
Which, harming not the flesh, to powder brays the bones, 
This poison evenso the heart doth burn and sear. 
Or, if 'tis nought of this, it is a strange mischance. 
The vintage's green hopes that blasteth in advance 
Nor suffereth at all the ripened grapes appear. 



68 R&MI BELLE A U. 



LOVE AND MONEY. 

Misfortune 'tis to love at all 
And worse misfortune not to love : 
But one's heart's wish to lack above 
All iUs is worst that can befell. 

Lineage for lovers nothing can; 
Love tramples rank beneath his car; 
Wit, virtue, breeding, to the man, 
Who hath but wealth, superfluous are. 

Ah, would to heav'n the miser might 
Die wretchedly, who men for prey 
To scurvy money did bewray 
And first accounted it for right ! 

For wars and death on dreadfiil ways 
It still hath furthered in their course; 
And wretched lovers (which is worse) 
Because thereof do end their days. 



THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Ah, how happy we reckon thee. 
Jolly grasshopper, frisk and free! 
For no sooner a little dew 
Out of the shrubs and herbage new 
Hast thou drunken than, in the green. 
Glad of cheer as a puissant queen. 
Straight thou makest the woods and hills 
Echo all with thy dulcet trills. 



Rl^MI BELLE A U. 69 

All that forest and hill and spring, 
All that meadow and mountain bring, 
All thine own is. The husbandman 
Still thou pleasest; for bale nor ban 
To his travail thou bring'st nor irk 
To him doest nor to his work. 
All for goodness esteemeth thee, 
Prophet of Summer soon to be. 
Thee do the Muses love and too 
Phoebus ApoUo loves thee, who 
Taught thee to sing so sweet Compelled 
Never art thou, as we, of eld. 

Sage earth's daughter, that never yet 
Pining wentest for passion's fret, 
Lilting-lover, affection-free. 
Pure of passion, all hail to thee. 
Neither of flesh nor blood that art. 
Well nigh Jupiter's counterpart! 



SPRING'S ADVENT. 

Lo, at the coming sign 
Of the sweet time of Spring, 
The companies divine 
Of Gods and Graces bring 
Armsful of roses sweet. 
The pleasant Prime to greet. 

Lo, how the waters wide 
Of Ocean's surging plain 
And all the wrinkled tide 
Grow smooth and calm again 
And birds an hundred sort 
Upon its surface sport. 



RMx: bellmm: 

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vnm wm laHnrmic:. 

^rytfi*t (^Arh rm He imiar -anaiteiT 

4(^,4 j-^^K rtt« tiy .leaat: «nDt my^ aroii] 

f* Tf ^i^v ^^^«{«^ rtnn<( \wiib^. ^waeten- ns^. 
1^ i*ff rhy 4f>ttl t lit ^umbeD msE^ -rtttagi. 
^/>/%fi. .woH' '111*^51 ^e 5«toiiK D .iiiHiL sdbsgi. 



R&MI BELLE A U. 7 x 



TO THE SWALLOW. 

Heigho ! Each Springtide back again, 
Each year, thou comest, pretty one, 
And with thy beak, once Winter done, 
Thy nest to fashion still art fain. 
Then, Winter come, away thou go'st 
To where thou dwell'st on Egypt coast 
Or Nile. But Love, woe worth the day! 
Love, cruel Love, sans cease his nest 
Hath builded in my sorry breast 
And maketh there eternal stay. 
One of his fledglings down a-back 
Hath e'en and flappeth wings, alack! 
Another from his shell is new 
And yet another halfway through; 
And all the amorous covey still 
Clamours for food, its beaks to fill. 
Loud are they still and hungered aye: 
The greater ones the lesser feed 
Nor ever perish they of need; 
But others evermore rear they. 
What is it, Gods, that I must do? 
Alack ! I cannot such a brood, 
Meseems, of Lovelets old and new 
Hive in my breast and fill with food. 



IN PRAISE OF WINE. 
I. 

When the brimming bowl I drain. 
Every care and every pain. 
All chagrin and all despite. 
Fall to sleep in me forthright 



72 RAMI BELLEAV. 

What availeth me complain 
For that Death will me constrain 
And against my will one day 
Me upon the bier will lay? 
Troubled must I therefore be 
And my life forwandred see? 
Nay, I will but drink the more. 
Come, companions, up and pour; 
Since, whene'er I drain the bowl, 
Every pine and every dole. 
All chagrin and all despite. 
Fall to sleep in me forUiright 

3. 

My troubles in me die 
Fordiright, as soon as I 
This sacred liquor let 
My thirsty guUet wet. 
Fain frolic would I sing 
And richer than a king 
I boast me, more of store 
Than Croesus was of yore. 
Prone on my breast reclined, 
With ivy-trails I bind 
And wreathe my grizzled hairs. 
My sorrows and my cares 
Beneath my feet I tread 
And cast ^em to the dead. 
Let who so will take arms. 
Glory, in war's alarms, 
For duty's sake, to buy: 
For me, fain drink would I. 
Up, page, then, quick, and brim 
The bowl up to the rim; 
For better drunk to bed 
To go it is than dead. 



R&MI BELLEA U. 73 



OF LIVING GAILY. 

Born I was to make an end 
And the o'erswift way to wend 
Of the travel here below. 
What I've lived too well I know; 
But, alack! the Gods are dumb 
Of the years for me to come. 
Get you gone, chagrin and care! 
Hence away from me, despair! 
Far, afar, with all of you 1 
Nought withal I have to do. 
Whilst the vital air I quaff, 
Fain I am to drink and laugh, 
Having evermore with me 
Bacchus boon to company. 



WEALTH AND DEATH. 

If wealth, indeed, and gold 
Might stop our growing old 
And hold our bright days back 
Upon their track, 

I'd keep them in reserve, 
Me against Death to serve. 
And he should take my pelf 
And leave myself. 

But since, alas! no man 
May lengthen out life's span 
Nor bargain for a breath 
With present Death, 



74 RJ^MI BELLEA U. 

What skilleth us complain 
And render tears like rain? 
What booteth us the skies 
Besiege with sighs? 

Since cruel Death for all, 
Unpitying, doth call, 
What worth were golden ore 
Or silver store? 

But I, ere I descend 
To darkness, fain I'd spend 
And with my friend laugh yet, 
At table set. 

My Cytherea's charms 
Soft holding in mine arms, 
Ere to the shades below 
I needs must go. 



DRINKING SONG. 

O'er all the trees, an if I mote, 
I'd choose the myrtle and the lote. 
To drink beneath their flickering shade; 
And Love should serve me, with his gown 
From ofif his shoulders floating down 
And girded with a silken braid. 

Our days run past us, good and ill. 
As 'twere a chariot running still; 
Nor after death of us shall there 
Be aught of greater price than just 
A little ashes left and dust. 
To tell the tale of what we were. 



R&MI BELLEA V. 75 

Then what availeth to perfume 
The tomb with incense and to fume 
The earth with lily-scented showers? 
I'd rather far^ whUst yet I live, 
That they should perfume me and weave 
A chaplet for my pate of flowers. 

HOy there! Let one go seek my lass, 
Or ever from the world I pass 
And die and go I know not where. 
Before upon the Styx's bed 
I go to dance among the dead, 
At least 111 frolic off my care. 



CANZONET. 

None other lord than Love I own: 
Him night and day I serve alone; 
And that is why I love-liking 
Have of my life and soul made king. 

To be his serf mislikes me not; 
My heart is happy in its lot; 
For kindlier used it thinks to be 
In service than in liberty. 

As for the lord I follow, he's 
No changeling harsh or hard to please; 
Nor courteous unto me and kind 
He is alone, but all mankind. 

Some peevish, froward mother's son, 
Hl-bom, ill-wished of every one, 
May cruel call this God most high: 
I know him not for such, not I. 



76 R&MI BELLEA U. 

Nought of him have I but delif^t, 
Pleasance of body and of spright; 
.And who beneath him lives in grief 
No lover is, in my belie£ 

Love is companion of the time 
Of Autumn, even as the Prime, 
And I myself his fires aglow 
Have found beneath the Winter's snow. 

One wan of visage and forspent 
Still for despite is and chagrin: 
Another never is content, 
For wish of what he may not win. 

The pangs of hoping and despair 
For him reserved are, who, poor swain. 
The grace and favour of his fair, 
By loving service, cannot gain. 

For me, if I the lover's grace 
But had, for which one asketh not. 
But taketh still in time and place, 
With God I would not change my lot 



THE VINTAGE. 

See, lads, the God of wine 
It is that back doth fare, 
The God, against repine 
That armeth us allwhere; 

The God, that makes us strong. 
Gay, jolly, bright and brisk. 
That teacheth youth to frisk 
And dancing love and song. 



RAMIBELLEAU. 77 

It is his lovesome brew, 
The charm to us he gives. 
The germ that sprouts and lives 
Upon the vines anew. 

Within the ripening grape 
He hides it from the air, 
Beneath the trellis' care. 
And moulds it into shape. 

Then is it cut, that we 
Our lives, by aid of wine. 
May pass, from all repine, 
From cares and sorrows free; 

Brief, that we may off-fling 
Our troubles, till the year, 
Returning in its sphere. 
Another harvest bring. 



WITH A BOUQUET ON ASH WEDNESDAY. 

This bunch of flowers to you, my fair, 
I send, so witness they may bear 
That our bright days fast lapse away. 
Like flowers, and us behoveth take 
Our pleasure now, for Love's sweet sake. 
Nor put it off beyond to-day. 

Nor wait for Age's frozen sloth. 
Our limbs to render stiff and loth 
For all the pleasures of the Prime, 
But pass, in amorous delights 
And lovesome sport, what days and nights 
Are left us of our pleasant time. 



78 RAMI BELLEAU. 

For, of a surety, cruel Doom, 
To couch us in the silent tomb, 
Already waiteth at the door. 
Believe me, sweet, our lives let's pass 
As blitheliest we may. Alas! 
For after death one feels no more. 

You know what says the priest, when he 
Upon the brows of you and me 
With ashes makes the sign etem. 
Forewarning us that out of dust 
Our mortal bodies came und must, 
Ere long, to dust again return. 

No human show doth there remain; 
Nor blood there is nor pulse nor vein. 
Heart, nerves, flesh, rotted all away; 
'Tis nothing but a shadow light, 
Withouten hearing, thought or sight, 
To earth and to the worms a prey. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 



LOVE AND CONTENT. 

Let whoso fain would fill his treasuries with gold 
And his domains extend beyond their limits old 
Cleave all the seas that be with keen and eager keel 
And in the flames of war his tempered heart anneal! 

Let slumber, when it falls down-softly on his eyes, 
Be broken up for him by thunder from the skies 
And let his couching still, upon the tossing seas 
Or in the embattled camp, with thorns a-bristle be! 

For me, enough content with this my mean estate, 
Time idly in the arms I early pass and late 
Of her I love and with the music of my lyre 
Charming her leisures, so allay my amorous fire, 

Esteeming that repose we hold in common here 
And that delight we take in our discourse as dear 
As to a conquering king the booties won in war 
Or to a merchant rich his merchandise and store. 

O happy, happy those who, in the age of gold. 
Milk from the common springs mild-welling might behold 
And honey from the oaks upon the mountains flow, 
The blossoms to bedew upon the plains below ! 

6 



82 OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 

Like to the guileless time the fashions were; the laws 
Had issued from kings' mouths not yet, to give us pause; 
Nor in the fields to sweat the husbandman had need 
Nor wield the reaping-hook, his family to feed. 

The world, beneath the sun, was one perpetual May, 
The same sun came each mom, to gild with equal ray 
The summits of the hills; and still the darkling night 
The lightsome day ensued and after darkness light. 

The lamb among the wolves in safety did abide; 
The cattle roamed the earth in freedom far and wide, 
And Jupiter not yet the scathing lightnings hurled 
And thunders of his wrath upon the labouring world. 

The wild winds slept in peace, imprisoned in their caves, 
Nor Ocean vexed the shore, tempestuous, with its waves; 
Nor did the sailor leave his own familiar strands, 
Their merchandise to buy in change from stranger lands. 

No cares, in those glad days, against man's spirit warred; 
One with the other lived in quiet and accord; 
The God of War resigned to rust his useless arms 
Nor yet the world involved in discords and alarmse 

None yet wore mail nor yet the drum's portentous din 
The hearts of foemen filled with terror and chagrin; 
The Spanish jennet wild and riderless ran yet 
Nor had of custom learned the bridle-bit to fret. 

One native land alone, then, without more, men knew; 
The meats whereon one fed were simple, then, and few; 
The apple-tree at gree still bore its apples then 
And the vine ripened grapes without ^e aid of men. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 83 

The peasant in those days the vintage never trod; 
The grapejuice at its will ran down upon the sod; 
Nor was the vine-press yet in usance, from the vine 
To force the household drink of modem peoples, wine. 



No angler, then, with rod and line and hook, applied 
To snare the silly fish beneath the rippling tide; 
Nor did the huntsman go, amid the leafy brake. 
About the timid stags with net and springe to take. 

This rage of love, which holds my bosom still afire, 
Held lovers' hearts not, then, in languor for desire 
And Venus* wanton son not yet, on crafty wise, 
Men's simpleness and faith had set him to surprise. 

Nay, Love, what is't I say? Thine ardour in those days 
Was nought but pastime sweet and pleasance sans amaze; 
And that mild passion, which its gentle warmth imparts. 
Of its own motion, then, was kindled in our hearts. 

Love in each breast betimes enkindled then became. 
Lit by a common brand, that burned with equal flame. 
And choler, fear, disdain and jealousy not yet 
Had, as to-day, begun the lover's mind to fret. 

Reproaches and complaints, entreaties, tears and sighs 
In those days issued not from breast and mouth and eyes 
Of the afflicted swain; but, without dole or ill. 
He of his lady had enjoyment at his will. 

Now in some wood and now in some secluded dell. 
In liberty he kissed and clipped his bonnibelle; 
And both, without annoy or fear, like turtledoves. 
In pleasance without end, had easance of their loves. 



84 OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 

Come, then, my flBiir, and let us cause betwixt us twain 
The gladness of tibat age so sweet to live again 
Nor go in fear of death. Devour it what it may, 
Except Tibullus lie, we shall love on for aye. ^ 



SONNETS. 
I. 

The winter's on the way, Girard, and Zephyr here 
Brings back to us, with head flower-crowned, the frolic Spring : 
Already through the fields the new-freed rillets sing 
And Progne in the woods and Philomel I hear. 
The meads again grow green; the sky once more is clear; 
The sun shines bright and warm; the birds upon the wing, 
The beasts, the grass, the earth, air, water, everything. 
Are all fulfilled with love and pleasance far and near. 
Yet for myself, alack! but dolour comes again. 
But torment and chagrin, but misery and pain. 
And worse, my Girard, yet, if worse there can betide: 
And all these fields and birds and flowers and breeze and skies. 
Which one may laughing see for Spring on every side. 
Renew in me my old and half-forgotten sighs. 



Thou knowest. Love, too well how, under thy decree. 
My Spring of years IVe passed, in faith and fortitude. 
And how, with a stout heart, thine ensigns I've ensued, 
For governor and lord and king confessing thee. 
Now in the summer that of life myself I see. 
More firmly than before my bonds thou hast renewed; 
Nay, and meseemeth. Love, that 'tis thy wanton mood 
To aggravate my ill and make an end of me. 
What have I done to thee and what is thine intent? 
Might not the many ills I've suffered thee content, 

1 See post) p. 89, ^Oi Love after Death.'' 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 85 

But thus, from age to age, thou must me mortify? 
Behold my Autumn-tide, that cometh fast on me I 
But, nay, I speak in vain; thou hearken'st not my cry. 
God grant that, at the least, my Winter may be free ! 



I love my love, because she coal-black eyes 
And eyebrows hath and cheeks of rosy hue; 
Because she hath a breast of ivory new. 
Sweet breath and gracious smile, I love her, I. 
I love her for her forehead broad and high. 
Where Love in glory thrones; I love her, too. 
For her sweet speech and memory rich and true 
And for her wit, which doth all else outvie. 
I love her well, because she is humane. 
Because she wit and wisdom hath amain 
And for her heart from avarice is free. 
But that to love her most which doth me spur 
Is that still well in point she holdeth me 
And that I lie, whenas I wUl, with her. 



How happy is the man that from the town afar 
Lives freely in the fields upon his own domain 
And who in quiet holds his proper house in train 
Nor otherwhither seeks a better-fortuned star! 
He knoweth not of needs nor what distresses are 
And hath no other care than of the hail and rain; 
And if his house be bare of great affairs and gain. 
Great troubles, at the least, come not his peace to mar. 
Vines unto elms anon he binds; anon a tree 
He grafts and otherwhiles upon the swarded lea. 
For watering of the grass, he taps a fountain-head; 
Then, with his faithful wife and little ones, at night. 
Returning home again, he sups by candle-light. 
Devises, warms himself, and so betimes to bed. 



86 OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 



Now that so mild the dawn is in this month of May, 
I rise as soon from bed as rosy-fingered Mom 
And seeking to allay the prick of sorrow's thorn, 
Unto the woods repair, to list the small birds* lay; 
Where, if the nightingale I hear complain, straightway, 
Progne, to boot, begins bewail herself, lovelorn; 
And each consoleth each and each with each doth mourn: 
And so, within this brake, content they bide and gay. 
But I, alas ! I moan, I cry and I lament. 
Help seeking for the ill that doth me thus torment. 
And never any find that doth to me reply. 
I only, I, these woods with my complaint awake 
And to myself, alas! I only answer make, 
ELaving none other hope than that I soon shall die. 

6. 

How shall we do, my Gordes? Shall we, then, ne'er have 
peace? 
Have we, then, said farewell to peace for evermore? 
Shall we for ever, then, upon the earth have war, 
War, that a people's loads so sorely doth increase? 
But soldiers, horses, arms, I see and never cease 
To hear discourse of nought of battle but and gore. 
No sound but trumpets' clang, arms' clash and cannon's roar. 
Nor talk of aught but wars begun at kings' caprice. 
Nay, princes with our lives, in these our times, do play; 
And when our goods and store they've reft from us away. 
They've neither power nor care to render them to us. 
Unhappy we to live in such an age as this. 
Which suffereth us be of ills environed thus I 
The fault from others comes; but ours the damage is. 



What while I make my moan, beneath this copse's shade, 
Of her, my freedom lost in durance who detains. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 87 

The nightingale I hear, of Tereus who complains 
And who to my sad voice attunes her serenade. 
Yet on far different wise our twin complaint is made. 
The thirst for vengeance breathes in Philomela's strains; 
Whilst in my soul the love of one forever reigns, 
By whom an hundred deaths in life on me are laid. 
True is it, her complaint in three months finisheth; 
But mine no respite hath, no end except in death, 
And dureth still with me, in travail and repose. 
Since, then, my amorous pain unequalled is of her 
Or any other, let me end my days and woes. 
Still singing on till death, as doth the grasshopper. 



CANZONET. 

TO HIS LADY. 

That tress is yours, my mistress fair. 
That tress of golden, glittering hair. 
That very gold itself would shame; 
Yon brows, that flawless ivory seem. 
And those twin stars, below that beam, 
All these are yours, my dulcet dame. 

Yours is that lovesome cheek of rose 
And those two lips, that in repose 
Like threads of virgin coral show. 
And eke those teeth, whence issueth 
The fragrance of your balmy breath, 
Like pearls or crystals all arow. 

Brief, yours they are, the lovely face, 
The gracious wit, the goodly grace, 
The sweetness inenarrable. 
Mine only is the dire distress 
And all I suffer of duresse 
For you to love and wish you well. 



88 OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 



OF FREEDOM IN LOVE. 

Because, in these my Loves diversely here down-set, 
I parley now with Anne and now with Margaret,, 
Louise and Maudlin, some may charge me, sooth to tell, 
With loving in o'er-many a quarter to love well. 

To this my answer is, according to the pains. 
Which I've so long endured for these fair maids' disdains, 
And to such good as I have had of them no less, 
I've striv'n to set it down with truth and simpleness. 

But one alone to love and by that one behold 
My life fore'er in thrall to torments manifold, 
I'faith, that can I not; I'd rather say. "Adieu!" 
And in another place a better lot ensue. 

'Twas Nature made me thus, and she herself is &ir 
For the diversity that's in her everywhere; 
Thus natural I am and that which pleasedi me 
In the afiairs of love is e'en diversity. 

A young man's but a fool, deserving of disgrace. 
Who lodgeth not his heart but in one only place; 
And woe betide the mouse for whom the cat's jaws gape. 
Who knoweth but one hole whereby he may escape. 

One's fortune still from port to port to seek 'tis sage, 
To hither, thither fare, to change one's pasturage; 
And if acceptance due we find not anywhere. 
Another land to seek and better fortune there. 

By travel and discourse in various lands and seas. 
By talk with divers folk in divers languages, 
A man approves himself more rare and gains the fame 
Of one who's seen the world, a man of wit and name. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 89 

Those peevish swains, who night and day to sigh are fain 
After a love, to which they still aspire in vain, 
Lose food and sleep, what while they yet draw living breath, 
Each moment of their days still suffer many a death. 

I make my mock of them; for this their furious love 
That is not which transports man's soul to heav'n above; 
A frenzy 'tis that turns their wills from good to bad 
And makes men in the streets still point at them for mad 

Let us, then, love at large and these sour constancies 
Far banish from our loves and our alliances. 
Loving who loveth us and still abiding free 
To enter on new loves, when of the old tire we. 



OF LOVE AFTER DEATH. 

If it be true that, in the world below, 
We love on still, in spite of time and death. 
And that true love in nothing suffereth 
From the dark grave, to which we all must go, 

Let Death, then, do on me his utmost scaith, 
I will love constantly, despite his dart. 
And dead or live, in thee, my love, my heart 
Shall ever live, my puissance and my faith. 

Let us live happy, then, since so it is 
That after death, one can live on fore'er 
And all the happier hold oneself that there 
The less one hath of cares and miseries. 

There neither doubts nor languors sad undue. 
Nor vain regrets nor harassing suspects. 
Cold fears nor traitor looks nor sad affects, 
Trouble the gentle hearts of lovers true. 



90 OUVIER DE MAGNY. 

Nay, gaily, still, in some sweet shaded place, 
With kisses sweet their lores they certify 
And living each anew the other by. 
Their arms about each other's necks enlace. 



There not, as here, the churlish husbandman 
Our mother's bosom rends with the sharp share, 
Nor doth the knave surveyor ever there 
The fields and woods unfairly mete and span. 

There all the goods of life in common are; 
Earth without care produceth them or cark; 
Nor ever there the mantle of the dark 
The blue of heaven's air with night doth mar. 

There Zephyr wafteth ever with soft wing 
And there the meadows lush and bosky bowers. 
All diapered with many-coloured flowers. 
The coolth exhale of an eternal Spring. 

The wolves there never ravish from the flocks 
The tender lambkins nor the humble ewes; 
No dolphin in the streams the fish pursues 
Nor falcon strikes the pigeons on the rocks. 

The timid hart goes never there in dread 
Of the fierce tiger: nor the serpents there, 
Casting their slough among the meadows fair. 
Upon the painted grass their venom shed. 

No tempest there the summer-quiet shocks. 
Filling the temperate air with hurtling hail; 
Nor stormwinds o'er the ocean rage and wail, 
Urging the ships upon the parlous rocks. 



OLIVIER DE MAGNY. 91 

The heats of summer in that dulcet dime 
Th'enamelled gardens never scorch and bum; 
Nor are the fields and woodlands there in turn 
Of leaves and flowers despoiled by Autumn-time. 

No winters there the rills in ice encage; 
Nor usance there nor habitude nor need, 
Despite of time, hath aye availed to breed 
The arts and crafts that dull our sorry age. 

Thither we'll ^o and there, together, we 
Our gentle loves will dulcetly ensue 
And there in peace and pleasance dwell, we two, 
In happiness that shall for ever be. 

Let Death, then, do on me his utmost scaith. 
I will love constantly, despite his dart; 
And dead or live, in thee, my love, my heart 
Shall ever live, my puissance and my faith. 



AMADIS JAMYN. 



AMADIS JAMYN. 



CHRISTIAN ODK 

Who, in this waste of days, 
Shall succour my amaze? 
O Jesus of my praise, 
Have pity on my case; 
Show me Thy shining face; 
Give ear unto my cries; 
Solace my lovesick spright 
And bless my longing eyes 
With Thine eternal light. 

A lover is my soul, 
Whose aim Thou art and goal: 
Thou, too, of those, heart-whole 
Who love Thee, lover art. 
Come, quicken Thou my heart; 
Enlighten Thou the way. 
Wherein my spright's afire : 
Thou only canst allay 
The flame of my desire. 

Thou surely canst not hate 
The soul disconsolate. 
That pineth still, await 
For that Thy promised grace 
And its salvation trace 



AMADISJAMYN. 

Doth to Thy precious blood 
Then why th'immortal sweet 
To it of this Thy good 
Delayest Thou to mete ? 

Ahy wherefore dost Thou leave, 
Unsuccoured, me to grieve ? 
Why fail'st Thou to relieve 
My woes? Why cast my prayers, 
Unanswered, to the airs? 
The voices of my pain, 
That rend my maz^d wit, 
Besiege Thine ear in vain: 
Thy love's but counterfeit. 

But Thou, in vain, forby. 
With careful love dost try. 
Torment and mortify. 
In sorrow day and night. 
My longing, lovesick spright. 
It will not cease for aye 
To love its own defeat 
And languishing, will say, 
"To languish thus is sweet." 



STANZAS. 

OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. 

The summer winter shall become and Autumn Spring; 
The heav'ns shall heavy grow and heavy lead be light; 
The fishes in the air our eyes shall see in fdght ^ 
And these that now are dumb be voiced to speak and sing; 
Water shall turn to fire and fire to water cold. 
Or ever other love upon my heart take hold. 



AMADIS/AMYN. 97 

HI shall give gladness, ease dismay and sickness health ; 
Snow shall be black and bold the timid hare and brave; 
The lion, coward turned, shall blood no longer crave; 
The earth no more shall herbs nor silver yield and gold; 
The rocks, of their own will, shall have the power to range. 
Or e'er my love from this its present case shall change. 

The wolf in one same fold shall stable with the ewe, 
Together penned without a sign of enmity; 
The eagle with the doves in brotherhood shall be 
And the chameleon shall no longer change his hue. 
The swallow leave in Spring to nest the eaves above. 
Or e'er this heart of mine be ta'en with a new love. 

The moon, which in a month retumeth, its career 
In thirty years shall run, instead of thirty days. 
And Saturn, who his course in thirty years defrays. 
Shall lighterfooted grow than Phoebe's silver sphere; 
The night shall be the day, the day shall be the night. 
Or e'er I at the fire of other loves take light. 

The years shall work no change in fashion nor in hair; 
The senses shall in peace with reason come to dwell; 
And pleasanter shall be mischances foul and fell 
Than all the world's delights to hearts that find it fair; 
Men shall love Death and Life on like wise hate and shun, 
Toward another love or e'er you see me run. 

Hope from the world of men forevermore shall cease 
And fidsehood none from truth be able to discern; 
Fortune no more without a cause shall shift and turn 
And Mrar's effects ensue in harmlessness and peace; 
The sun shall darkened be and God grow visible 
Or e'er another love my captive heart compel. 



98 AMADIS JAMYN. 

CANZONETS. 

I. OF HIS lady's praise. 

The lovesome visage of my dame 
Is tinct with such a virgin snow 
And flushed with such a vermeil flame, 
That bumeth still and never low, 
That of her several beauties Love 
Scarce knoweth which is which above 
And He, who conquers all save Death, 
Conquered Himself acknowledgeth. 

The amorous and dulcet flush. 
Upon her lovesome cheek that glows, 
Under her tresses long and lush, 
Is as a glad incarnate rose, 
That from its thorn-set crown of green 
Discovereth its blossoms sheen, 
Whenas the sun, at dawning gray, 
Leaving the East, leads up the day. 

And so her forehead's glittering white 
Is as the moon above the sea. 
That on the trembling waves at night 
With sparkling rays resplendently 
Far shineth o'er the snowy spray. 
Chasing the sullen shades away. 
When, in the time and air serene. 
Unclouded all the heav'ns are seen. 

So fair is she to whom I find 
Me bounden and so worshipworth ; 
The Gods to her have been so kind 
That her I cannot deem of earth; 



AMADISJAMYN. 99 

And all the other things men prize 
For precious in the earth and skies 
To me, compared with her my star, 
As nought or very little are. 

2. A lover's COBfPLAINT. 

I do not plain me of the feeble power 
That for defence my reason hath to dower; 
But I do plain me of my fancy's flight, 
That still its pinions plies at such a height. 

I do not plain me of my fleeting youth 
Nor of Love's war, that slays me without ruth; 
But I complain that for her high estate, 
The cause of all my woes, I am no mate. 

I plain me not that at all hours mine eye 
In tears is drowned, that still I weep and sigh; 
But I do plain me of my tongue, that will, 
And of mine eyes, that cannot, hide mine ill. 

I do not plain me of my wounded heart. 
That, 'neath feigned cheer, it feels the hidden smart. 
But that it joyeth in its languishment 
So that its woe alone can it content. 

I do not plain me that my thought lovensick, 
Leaving me, traitor, after her will prick; 
But that, my heart being hers, I have no sign 
By which to say of hers, "It will be mine." 

I plain me of the dulcet fire no whit. 
Which in my soul her lovesome eyes have lit; 
But I do plain me that my ill begot 
Was of her looks and yet they know it not. 



0# iC3i 4 



loo AMADISJAMYN. 

I plain me not that day long, night long, I 
In crud martyrdom must groan and sigh; 
But I complain that Echo me alone 
Pities and pitiful as I makes moan. 

I do not plain me that her loveliness 
Commandeth me and holdeth in duresse; 
But I complain that, when near her I come, 
She still Medusa is and strikes me dumb. 



Not that my wound is mortal I complain 
Nor that I die for love of her in vain; 
But I complain that she will never know 
How she it was who caused me perish so. 

3. OF SPRING. 

The violets white and blue 
In this sweet season blow 
And many flow'rets new 
In every quarter show: 
But of all blooms, that fields and bowers 

In Springtime bear, 
My Immortelle's most bright and fair. 
The flower of flowers. 

O beauteous blossom, cause of my despite, 

ImmorteUe mine. 

The new flower of thy beauty bright 

Maketh me pine. 

The meads, themselves unto 
The sun abandoning. 
With flowers of every hue 
Enamelled are in Spring, 



AMADISJAMYN. loi 

In vain. Before the tinct venneil 

Of her face fair, 
That doth to heav'n my courage bear, 

Their blooms all pale. 

To weave a garland, apt 
On her fair head to set, 
Where Love hath me entrapped 
Within her tresses' net, 
The treasures all of wood and field 

Despoil will I, 
That, jealous, each with other vie. 
Themselves to 3deld. 

The lily and the rose. 
The white flowers and the red. 
The honour to repose 
Upon that happy head 
Would have, o'er which, upon a plain 

A cloud as 'twere. 

That showers waters from the air, 

All blessings rain. 

All fairest flowers and best 
Were fain on her to fade. 
Esteeming themselves blest 
To touch so fair a maid. 
Who, like Aurora bright, doth still 

With blossoms pied, 
Wherein an hundred Lovelets hide. 
Her bosom fill. 

Life taking from my fair, 
Thou 'It see them blossom high; 
And out of envy, there 
If Flora doom them die. 



I09 AMADISJAMYN. 

It pleaseth them to pine, as me, 

For her sweet sj^e, 
That doth Spring's sheen as nothing make, 

So &ir is she. 



Three little months but lasts 
The Springtime sweet and soft, 
And stranger cold and blasts 
Do wreck and waste it oft; 
But ne'er shall Winter mar, with his 

Untimeous harms, 
The April of my lady's charms, 
So perfect 'tis. 

Needs must it be confest. 
Of all who make compare, 
That over April's best 
The bell her beauties bear ; 
Albe it boast its nightingale. 

That to his mate 

Among the branches doth relate 

His lovelorn tale. 

Yon rustic minstrel gay, 
That in the flowering brake. 
Whilst April lasts and May, 
Doth amorous music make, 
If he my lady sing should hear, 

His tender throat 
He'd seek to teach, its native note 
To take from her. 

Then let the Spring return 
At pleasure, whence it came. 
The fair, for whom I bum. 
Win never fail my flame. 



AMADISJAMYN. 103 

Whilst she is present here, I see 

The gracious Prime; 
And she being absent, Winter-time 

It is for me. 

O beauteous blossom, cause of my despite, 
Immortelle mine. 
The new flower of thy beauty bright 
Maketh me pine. 

4. OF HIS lady's absence. 

Now far that, my life, 
Thou art from my gaze, 
I live but in strife 
Nor look for bright days. 
The black shadows' throng 
ShaU be for my light: 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell. 
Afar from thy sight 

The amorous earth 
Grows graceless and gray, 
When sweet Summer's mirth 
Hath fleeted away: 
So absence from thee 
Hath deadened in me 
All hope of dehght; 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell 
Afar from thy sight. 

Each high-soaring thought, 
That fluttered in me. 
Is wasted to nought, 
E'enso as I see, 



I04 AMADIS JAMYN. 

No flower and no herb 
Abideth superb 
In darkness of night. 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell, 
ASbi from thy sight. 



My darkling eclipse 
With that is at one, 
Which on the moon grips, 
For lack of the sun; 
For out of the skies, 
That limit mine eyes, 
Day blotted is quite. 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell. 
Afar from thy sight. 

My secrets I say 
To the rocks where I err; 
No stone in my way 
So hard is of ear 
But pities my woe 
And softer doth grow, 
For ruth on my plight. 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell. 
Afar from thy sight. 

The tears, in my road 
The herbage that strew, 
The grasses corrode 
With poisonous dew; 
What flocks on them graze 
Are given for preys 



AMADIS JAMYN. 105 

To sickness and blight. 
Me call may I well 
A martyr of hell, 
Afar from thy sight. 



The woefuUest plaints 
Of lovers whilere 
But words are and feints 
By that which I bear; 
And nought stays the flame, 
Save thine oft-chanted name, 
Of my perishing spright. 
So me may I well 
Call a mart3rr of hell, 
Afar from thy sight. 



SONNETS. 

I. THE DREAM. 

Earth, water, air and fire, inexorable Fate 
And Gods, no less than men, conspire for my misgrace. 
Thee only, dulcet dream, in this my heavy case. 
None else than thee, to me I find compassionate. 
The fair, for whom I lose in vain, unfortunate. 
My time and youth, thou dost before mine eyes retrace, 
Accoutred on such wise, with such a form and face, 
That fain I'd have night dure forever without date. 
Yet rare thy kindness is; for bitter love not oft 
Mine eyelids suflPreth me to close in slumber soft, 
So I against his wrongs thereof may have repair. 
Whence, dream, since now I may but have thee and again. 
At least, whenas thou com'st, be not so swiftly fain 
To bear away the good that is to me so rare. 



io6 AMADIS JAMYN. 

2, SIGNS OF LOVE. 

If love it be, for ever in one's spright 
To hive the memory of one only fair; 
If love it be, for sadness pale to fare 
And perish, absent from one's lady's sight; 
If love it be, in fire both day and night 
To live and worship what the heart doth tear; 
If love it be, to think of nothing e'er 
But to re-see the eyes, my breast that bite; 
If love it be, oneself for love to bate, 
To nurse Life's foe, chagrin importunate. 
And firom all pleasures, self-displeasured, fly; 
Far from one good, oneself forlorn to hold. 
Having one's soul in that sole good ensouled; 
If this be love, how fast in love am I! 

3. FALSE DESIRE. 

Full of desire that urgeth me astray. 
Diverting me from every other thought, 
After a mocking good, which leave I ought, 
A shy, unfavouring fair, I follow aye. 
This false desire will never let me stay: 
It bears me off and I therefor can nought. 
But love, as lord, my every sense hath wrought 
To follow their perdition night and day. 
Myself he doth to flee myself constrain 
And after her I love too well, in vain, 
To follow, as the clouds in heaven that fare. 
In dreams the Idol may one take, this gait 
Delusive, who his hands will not await 
That follows her and thinks to clip the air. 

4. THE NIGHTINGALE. 

Thou, to these woods, each year, delightsome nightingale. 
Amid the thickset leaves that com'st to make lament, 



AMADIS JAMYN. 107 

I recognize in thee thy customary plaint 
And know the wistful strains of thine accustomed tale. 
But last year's me, alack! thou nevermore shalt hail; 
A fair divine, renowned for worth preeminent, 
Whose weapons overpass a man's admeasurement, 
The favouring wind of yore hath muted for my sail. 
Henceforward thou a mate unto thine accents sad 
Shalt have, who day and night his love-complaints will add. 
Erst was I free; but now, since Love in me doth stir. 
Thou seest me, grown a slave, for my poor heart prepare 
Chagrin and woe to food and those bright eyes, that were 
My conquerors, make at once my bridle and my spur. 

5. MOURNING. 

I know full well that flowers not always are a-blow; 
I know that Spring's delights endure but for a spell, 
That, in the woods, the leaves must fall, as still they fell: 
Yet that their verdure's not for ever dead, I know. 
Although the moon, bytimes, is red of tinct, not so 
Forever is her hue; but, being changeable. 
That she on like wise shines not ever, I know well: 
But this I know that still unchanging is my woe. 
Regret, I know, fore'er I harbour in my breast 
For these of whom ill fate my love hath dispossest 
And that they followed are forever of my thought. 
I know that all repine and all regret are vain 
For that which cruel Fate to us doth foreordain; 
But counsel such to those who love availeth nought. 

6. UBERTY. 

No man in this our world did ever yet live free; 
None is unthralled; but one or other servitude 
Doth every mortal bind with fetters mild or rude. 
According to the kind of his captivity. 
Some to the riches serfs which dominate them be; 



io8 AMADIS JAMYN. 

Fortune of othersome with care and toil ensued, 
Some slaves to lords who pay with sheer ingratitude, 
And others of all kinds of pleasures slaves we see. 
One doth a fickle folk and thankless master call 
And one ambition hath that holdeth him in thrall. 
The laws on th'other hand forbid us still to use 
The fashions and the ways that most are to our mind: 
Each hath his bond; but much one may, the gentlest kind 
Of service, — Love's, to wit, — if for one self one choose. 

7. NOTHING LOST. 

Nought in this world is lost and that which lesser grows 
As much as it hath lost gains in some other land. 
An if the sea bytimes go swallowing a strand. 
Its waves elsewhere as much of naked earth expose. 
Nay, if some land unknovm, from ocean rising, shows 
To some stray traveller's sight, itself, on other hand. 
The sea, one may not doubt, in other oceans spanned 
By other skies, as much, concealing, overflows. 
So, when the Fates from us some good or pleasure bear 
Away, that which we lose is found again elsewhere. 
Or else another good we get, to fill its place. 
Yea, in your sight I've known how sure is this my say. 
For that in you far more than that to me which aye 
Vouchsafed hath been of good I've found of gain and grace. 

8. LOVE XJNDYING. 

A love, that lapseth in thy flood, forgetfulness, 
And passeth not beyond the unremembering shore. 
May not be titled Love; nay, rather, it is more 
A semblant false, that Love to be doth but profess. 
The doves, which, where the house is white, themselves 

address 
To sojourn, still, when past its whiteness is and hoar 
The dwelling, build their nests above another door: 



AMADISJAMYN. 109 

But I, I set no store by such inconstantness. 

I like the ivy am, that clippeth constantly, 

Admitting nought of change, its well-belovM tree 

And still, as 'twere alive, in death doth it embrace. 

Nay, seest thou not yon trunk, all withered up and dead. 

Yet by the ivy's arms that is encompassed? 

My love o'er very death hath conquered a like place. 

9. LOVE-DAY. 

Th'inhabitants of Crete and denizens of Thrace 
With a black stone were wont to mark a luckless day 
And those that brought them luck, before they passed away. 
They with that colour marked which blackness doth efface. 
If with a sable stone, in every divers place, 
I'd marked the various ills that compassed have my way. 
Since that to love o'erwell the heav'ns did me foresay. 
Alack ! the pebbles white would hold but little space. 
Now fortunate I've been and now unfortunate. 
According as the shifts have willed of fickle Fate 
And as our life ordained is of the heavenly host: 
But, over all the days, which happiness whilere 
Have brought me, this to-day of all the bell shall bear, 
If greatest be that bliss which one desireth most. 



J. A. DE BAIF. 



J. A. DE BAIF. 
THE POET'S LOT. 

(to JACQUES PELETIER.) 

How Cometh it, Pdetier, pray, 
That poets, in their proper day, 
Accomplished howsoe'er they be, 
Themselves ennobled never see. 
Nay, rarely find their verses read, 
Fair though they be, till they are dead, 
And men prefer, in every tongue, 
The older writers to the young, 
Albe the younger writers' writ 
More polish hath and finer wit 
And that the elder stream of song 
More troubled waters rolls along? 
Peletier, is't that jealousy 
Doth human life accompany 
And straight its rage extinguisheth 
When life hath found its end in death? 
Abandon we not with- regret 
That which since youth we've loved nor yet 
To quick oblivion can consign 
And put away our first incline? 
His age at Homer scoffed; long dead 
Old Daddy Ennius folk read. 
When Rome had Virgil, live, sublime. 
Ne'er hath one seen the present time 

8 



114 /. ^. ^^ ^^^^^ 

As that which follows after do 
And worship and advantage due 
To him, as much, while he did live, 
Who as the dead deserved it, give. 
But, little book, * be't as it may, 
Haste not to live for me, I pray: 
I'm in no haste to have a name, 
Since such a price one pkys for fame. 



AUBADE OF MAY. 

Mother of Love, Venus the fair. 
Why hast thou underneath thy care 
May's lusty month not taken, say? 
If April took thy tender heart. 
At least thy son, for his own part. 
Should take the lovesome time of May. 

May, that not only dost outdo 
April in grace and scent and hue. 
But of thyself alone art worth, 
For pleasantness and lovesome cheer. 
All other seasons of the year. 
That waste with heat and cold the earth; 

May, sweetest month of the year's round. 
Show thy fair head, with chaplets bound, 
A fragrant Spring of blossoms gay. 
Along the meads thy blithesome rout, 
Laughter and Sport and Youth, lead out 
And drive chagrin and care away. 

This poem was written as the prelude to a book of verse. 



/. A. BE BAIF. 115 

Though April Venus vaunt to dame, 
Who doth avouch it with her name, 
Of thee it is as much outdone 
As the shut flowerbud of the rose 
Less glorious is than that which shows 
Its full-blovm blossom in the sun, 

As much as lesser hope the frail 
Is than enjoyment of avail 
Betwixt a lover and his lass, 
As much as doth my lady fair, 
In every grace, beyond compare. 
The brightest beauties overpass. 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

TO HENRI ESTIBNNE. 

So, then, to town thou back dost fare, 
Estienne, my friend, and dost forswear 
The lovesome sojourn of the fields: 
So the repose our country yields, 
'Twould seem, no longer pleasures thee 
And Paris noises suit thy gree. 
Well, as thou meritest, at will. 
Of the town's pleasures take thy fill. 
So may the cooper, at his tun 
Hamm'ring, thine ears forever stun; 
Still let the mason come to hew 
His stone and wake thee, ere 'tis due, 
At mom, and some dull bell at eve 
With clashing peals thy hearing deave. 
The waggoner the livelong day 
Shall never, bawling, give thee stay, 
Importunate, thy window-sill 



n6 /. A. DE BAlF. 

Before, and most when thou wouldst still 

And quiet be, without annoy, 

The Muses' favours to enjoy. 

Yea, when about the streets thou go'st, 

Mayst thou be hampered with a host 

Of men manure for sale that cry; 

And may the suitor, hurrying by, 

Thee on thy belly deal a buflf 

To make thee bend in twain enough ! 

The tumbril and the dustman's car 

With dust and filth thy mantle mar 

And carrion cross thy thoroughfare, 

That to the laystall off they bear; 

Or plague-struck wretches pass thee by, 

Who on the litter moan and cry! 

Brief, all the thousand ills sustain, 

That to the city appertain; 

With all th'annoys thy stomach sate. 

Therein that harbour ear and late: 

Whilst, in our pleasant country life, 

Dorat and I, from all the strife 

And vice, that in the cities are, 

By holy horror forced afar. 

Our pleasance take, nought pleasing us 

So much the rabble frivolous 

As to misplease, that scorn the true 

And after vanities ensue. 

We joy to seek the mountain-side 

And thence to view the landscape wide. 

Then, to the meadows down again. 

We view the mountains from the plain. 

Anon, about the pastures green, 

With pallid willows all beseen. 

We go a-stroUing, where the kine 

Crop with slow teeth the grasses fine. 

What while the shepherds, for mirth's sake. 

With pipes and shalmeys music make. 



/. A, DE BAIF. 117 

The shepherdesses to the sound 

Join hands and dancing in a round, 

The newly sprouted grasses beat 

And overpass with frolic feet. 

To list their laughter, oft we see 

The kine their muzzles from the lea 

Lift up, upon their mirth to gaze, 

Forgetting, for the nonce, to graze. 

The hours the better to beguile, 

Our usance 'tis to read the while 

The verses Ovid sang of yore 

Or Horace wrought by Tibur shore; 

Ay, or some wanton canzonet, 

Of those the Syracusan * set, 

And his the Mantuan's lays, as well, 

The labours of the field that tell. * 

Anon, snug nested in some brake 

Or by the shore of some cool lake, 

Upon the willow-shadowed brink. 

Some well-wrought verse we overthink, 

That shall the lapse of Time defy, 

The days, the months, the years that fly, 

So of the Sisters Nine one maid 

At least vouchsafe us of her aid. 

If thou repent thee, my Estienne, 

Come to the country back again 

And leave the city, with its pelf 

And cares and travails, to itself. 



SPRINGTIME. 

Winter's chill and slothful cheer 
Now at last hath had its time; 
See, the merry season's here 
Of the fair and frolic Prime. 

1 Theocritus. < The Geoigics of Virgil. 



ii8 J.A.DEBAIF. 

Grass-enamelled is the earth; 
Jewelled is the grass with flowers 
And the little leaves' new birth 
Shadows all the forest bowers. 



Now the maids at early mom, 
Ere the tyrant sun wax hot, 
Haste to cull the rose new-bom, 
From the fragrant garden-plot, 

So the blooms more sweet may show, 
Whether grace they serve to lend 
To the damsels' breasts or go 
Given to some favoured friend. 

Who the flower, love-token-wise, 
Having from his love's hand, it 
Kisseth oft and from his eyes 
Will not let it any whit. 

Hearken to the piping shrill 
Of the shepherd in the vale. 
Vying with the dulcet trill 
Of the woodland nightingale. 

See the waters pure and sheen 
Ripple in the running brooks, 
Mirroring the flickering green 
Of the neighbouring wooded nooks. 

Calm and cloudless is the sky 
And the sea serene and kind; 
Ships toward the Indies hie. 
Driven of the favouring wind. 



/ A. D£ BAIR 119 

AU the murmuring air is full 
Of the traffic of the bees, 
Hovering o'er the flowers, to cull 
Honey from the blossomed leas. 

Now of ^very kind of bird 
Sounds the song on every side; 
In the fields the larks are heard 
And the cygnets on the tide. 

Round the eaves the swallows croon: 
In the woods the ni^tiogales 
Unto many a glad new tune 
Tell their dulcet amorous tales. 

So Love's easance and its dole, 
At my pleasure, will I sing, 
As its ardours to my soul 
Whether joy or sorrow bring. 

And if singing me rejoice, 
Have I not the right of rhyme, 
Now that all things with one voice 
Carol in the pleasant Prime? 



SONNET. 

TO HIS LADV. 

Nor length of time whate'er nor distance from thy sight, 
Nor lovesomeness nor grace of other fair than thou, 
Can cause me thee forget: ny love shall firill as now 
Abide, what while in hold my body have my spright. 
And since thou hast to me like constiincy behight, 
The sole debate 'twixt us faencefiorward shall be how 



lao /. A. DE BAIF. 

We each with each may vie, in furtherance of our vow, 
Which of us twain shall love the other with more might 
Behoveth us, by bond of troth-plight 'twixt us two, 
That loyal I to thee and thou to me be true, 
That our two hearts by one sole shaft transpierced be. 
I shall not vary, dear: but, so from flaw or blot 
Our friendship perfect be, I change thee vary not; 
For I, I cannot love except who loveth me. 



THE ROSE. 

In this season fair and fain 
Of the new renascent Spring, 
When all things are bom again. 
Full of life and loveliking, 
Neither in the meadows pied 
Nor the flowered hedgerows' side 
Nor in gardens fair and fine. 
Flower or blossom do I see, 
That so lovesome is to me 
As the rose of scent divine. 

But the white rose likes me not, 
Pale with pallor of the dead. 
No, nor that of crimson hot. 
Of a sanguine-coloured red. 
This one's pallor sick and spent 
And the other's sickly scent 
Pleasing neither eye nor nose. 
She all others doth outdo 
That herself from yonder two 
Doth a vermeil tint compose. 

'Tis the rose incarnate, me 
Most that pleasureth, forby. 



/. A. DE BAiF. lai 

Nothwithstanding such it be, 
Yet to choose it well will I, 
For this, taken in one hour. 
That, in other, as in our 
Season's choice is, better were. 
All is bom and dies, in fine, 
All things wax and all decline, 
Each in season, foul and fair. 

I, I will not force the rose. 
That the brightness of its bloom 
Doth on hidden wise enclose 
In the bud's unopened room. 
Let th'impatient gather it, 
Ere the blossom full and fit 
Open show its vermeil sheen: 
My desire transports me not, 
So that I should ravish what 
Smells of nothing but the green. 



6TIENNE JODELLE. 



6TIENNE JODELLE. 



COMPLAINT OF A LOVER'S LIFE. 

The stranger flame and hot, 
That Love in me hath lit, 
New ardour takes from what 
Should rather deaden it. 

My over-longsome pain, 
My hope too long in vain. 
My reason causes arms 
Against my poison seek; 
But my charmed fire becharms 
My reason's effort weak. 

My wits for succour call 
Unceasingly on all 
That's like to render less 
My tyrannous unease; 
But apprehension's stress 
Still grows by contraries. 

Such as it is, I see 
The love that masters me; 
So its effects disguise 
I cannot from my mind; 
But this blind lord mine eyes 
To all his acts doth blind. 



1 36 &TIENNE JODELLE. 

Discoursing of Love's birth, 
His puissance and his worth, 
Albe I hold him not 
Or God or Heaven's son, 
Such power o'er me, God wot, 
No God hath, no, not one. 



I know whereof he's bred 
And that whereby he's fed: 
He's gendered of our wit 
And nourished by our heart; 
So to its tyrant it 
Alone doth force impart. 



My true discoursements him 
On other fashion limn 
Than rh3rmes or paintings, sure. 
Or fables false and sweet; 
But I of him endure 
That which they counterfeit. 

No flighty child is he; 
For in the heart of me 
He doth for ever dwell. 
With pinions or with flight 
His sloth hath nought to mell 
Nor childhood with his sleight. 

If he were God, the band 
Of Gods, that us command. 
So long would his unrights 
Not suffer sway and mar 
The noblest, sagest sprights. 
That their true children are. 



ATIENNE JODELLE. 127 

Or yet, if one might deem 
Him God of Gods supreme, 
Who did from chaos make 
This world of joys and woes, 
My discord he would break 
And change it to repose. 

Ne'er might injustice, spleen, 
Pleasure the Gods nor e'en 
This ardency to do 
The innocent unright: 
They can, I feel, unto 
Him * only yield delight. 

The stranger flame and hot. 
That Love in me hath lit, 
New ardour takes from what 
Should rather deaden it. 



1 i.e. Love. 



JEAN PASSERAT. 



JEAN PASSERAT. 



MAY DAY. 

Come, slumber let us leave and bed 

This Mayday mom; 
The Dawn for us with brows of red 

Already's bom. 
Now that the heavens most are gay, 
In this delightsome month of May, 

Let's love, sweetheart; 
Let's take our fill of jubilee; 
For pleasure only here hath he 

Who takes his part. 

Come, sweetest, walk and take thine ease 

In this green brake 
And hear the songbirds in the trees 

Their music make. 
Nay, hearken how, above all things. 
The nightingale most sweetly sings 

Nor wearies aye. 
All dole forget we, all annoy. 
And life, as he * doth, let's enjoy: 

Time slips away. 



1 i. e. the nightingale. 



132 JEAN FASSERAT. 

This churl, to lovers contrary, 

E'en wings doth wear 
And our best years, a-flying, he 

Afar doth bear: 
When thou shalt wrinkled be one day, 
''I," melancholy, shalt thou say, 

"Was little wise, 
"In that I used the beauty not, 
"Which Time hath made such haste to blot 

"From cheeks and eyes." 

Leave this r^;ret, then, and these tears 

To elders dull; 
Youth's flowerage, in one's youthlul years, 

Bdioveth cull. 
Now that the heavens most are gay. 
In this delightsome month of May, 

Let's love, sweetheart; 
Let's take our fill of jubilee; 
For pleasure only here hath he 

Who takes his part. 



VILLANELLE. 

I have lost my turtle-doo. 
Is't not she I hear hard by? 
After her I'd fain ensue. 

Thou thy mate regrettest too. 
Wellaway! And so do I. 
I have lost my turtle-doo. 

If thy love, indeed, is true, 
So my faith is firm and high; 
After her I'd fain ensue. 



JEAN PASSERAT. 133 

Thy complaint is ever new; 
I too still must weep and sigh; 
I have lost my turtle-doo. 

Since I bade my fair adieu, 
Nought of pleasance I espy; 
After her I'd fain ensue. 

Death, to whom so oft I sue, 
Take thine own and let me die. 
I have lost my turtle-doo; 
After her I'd fain ensue. 



THE LOVER AND THE GRASSHOPPERS. 

Since, far away from towns and from the human race, 
I've wandered here to this sad, solitary place, 
Where, grasshoppers, I hear nought but your songs, that make 
The bushes and the grass with their shrill music quake. 
And since your life with mine doth much in common share, 
Let us, I pray, our wo^ and our defaults compare. 
You have but voice; and I, alike to you therein. 
But slow and feeble speech possess, for that chagrin 
Doth waste and wither me and on such wise bejade 
That I am well nigh nought except a walking shade. 
The pilgrim knows for sure that hotter weather's nigh. 
When you, among the meads, your voices raise on high; 
And 'tis a certain sign that ardent is my flame, 
My lady's cruelties when I aloud proclaim. 
Right plaintively I've sung a thousand times in vain; 
But she respondeth not to her tormented swain; 
And 'tis the like with you; your females all and some 
Do never answer you, for all of them are dumb. 
You live upon the dews, that, bead on pearly bead, 
The flowers and grasses store, and I, on tears I feed: 



134 JEAN PASSERAT. 

These are the meat and drink I feed on day and night. 

Fate hath foreordered you to have a feeUe sight 

Would God that never looked had I upon the skies ! 

Then had I never drunk Love's poison from her eyes. 

The folk, that dwell beneath Aurora's bed, the sea, 

Inhuman, feed on you; and Love devoureth me. 

My flesh and nerves and bones, my sinews and my skin, 

He still in pieces rends, that cruel mannikin ! 

You have no tongue; and me right treacherously mine 

Abandons in my need, as oft as I incline 

To tell my fair my case and prove if love and truth, 

Long, constant and unflecked, will in her sight find ruth. 

These boughs' and bushes' shade, though little, you defends 

Against the burning rays that Phoebus hither sends. 

Poor I, alack! within I bum for wandesire 

And eke, for the noon-heat, without I'm all afire. 

Nay, will or nill, to town my steps I must retrace. 

So, grasshoppers, farewell! Farewell, ye lovesome race 

Of great Laomedon ! ^ The herald of the sun. 

Your bride, ^ with vermeil hands that cleaves the darkness dun, 

Weeping her Memnon slain ' and cursing arms and war. 

With her most dulcet tears bedew you evermore! 



SONNETS. 

I. THE MONTH OF APRIL. 

The empty plains and wolds, from winter now set free. 
By the tempestuous blasts no more are overblown; 
The dulcet Zeph)rrs now, the air more fluid grown, 

1 Tithontts, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, was changed into 
a grasshopper. 

> Eos, the Dawn. 

s Memnon, son of Eos and Tithonus, was slain by AchiUes 
daring the siege of Troy. 



JEAN PASSER A T. 135 

The winter-exiled birds recall from oversea. 
The greedy trader now, the perils, erst which he 
Hath 'scaped, forgotten all, into the seas unknown 
Launcheth, the bridle bold upon his ship's neck thrown, 
In stranger lands to seek for riches at his giee. 
Mother of the dual Loves, o Cyther6an queen, 
Since, in this season, thou dost, with thy smiling mien. 
The fury of the heav'ns and of the seas abase. 
Appease, o Goddess mild, appease the tempest dire 
That rageth day and night in this my heart afire. 
For having rashly dared to love in too high place. 

2. TO THE MOON. 

O fSair eye of the night, Jove's daughter silver-mailed, 
Sweet sister of the Sun and mother of the year, 
Queen <^ the hills and woods and Ocean's changing sphere. 
Goddess, whose triple might in every place is hailed. 
Since thou the lowest steeps of nether heaven hast scaled, 
Whence to the piteous sighs of lovers thou giv'st ear. 
Tell me, o horned moon, didst ever see or hear 
Of any soul so sore of Love as mine assailed? 
If, then, my plaint avail to move thee, in thy hand 
It is to succour me, who hast at thy command 
The rainbow-plumaged host of dreams, that solace care. 
Choose out the aptest one to mimic, in the deep 
Of night, a lover's woes and send it, in her sleep. 
To represent my case unto my cruel fair. 

3. COUNTRY FARB« 

If, with his proper hands, one strangled have his sire. 
Have cut his mother's throat and drowned his sister sweet, 
Have to his brother's self his nephews giv'n to eat 
And like the Titan brood, have set the stars on fire; 
Whoso his greatest friend hath, in his need most dire, 
For money sold or giv'n for fiivour to defieat; 
Whoso his ancient host, imploring at his feet, 



136 JEAN PASSERA T. 

Hath stricken to the heart, unpitying in his ire, 
Hath broken every law, both human and divine, 
Betrayed his country, king, religion, all, in fine, 
And lit the flames of war within the Commonweal; 
Whoever he may be, if he himself would get 
Remission of his sins by due atonement, let 
Him dine at Arthenay and sup at Angervile. ^ 

4. TO HIS MISTRESS. 

If the stem hand of unrelenting Fate, 
Which ruleth all, hath chosen me to abase, 
Wilt thou, my heart, then, leave me in misgrace? 
To have goods is a common enough trait. 
The Indian Ocean let him navigate, 
Who in his store would treasure heap apace; 
I care not, I, to leave my native place. 
And Heaven contenteth me with my estate. 
Enough rich he, who, in his poverty, 
Sleeps without fear and wakes without repine, 
Paying his court unto the Sisters Nine: 
But I, provided but thou be with me, 
Shall happier dwell than he of Scotland's kings, 
To fly made by his subjects without wings. * 

5. TO THE BIRDS. 

Thou, lonely turtledove, and thou, o nightingale. 
King of the woods, and you, finch, linnet, siskin, wren. 
Ye lovesome minstrels all of field and dell and glen. 
Who of the ill complain, which I too must bewail, 

1 Arthenay and Angervile (Angerville), two small towns between 
Orleans and £tampes. 

s In allusion probably to the murder of King James I in 1437, 
or perhaps to the letting down of his infant son, James II, firom 
a window of Edinburgh Castle in the following year. 



JEAN PASSERAT. 137 

Come, give your common aid to heal a common ail. 
The happier I shall be, the happier you, too, then. 
So may the cruel wiles and snares of traitorous men. 
Their nets, their traps, no more to work you harm avail. 
I pray you, lovelings mine, and conjure one and all, 
That if upon a bird among you you befall, 
Yclepfed Love, ('tis he to whom we owe our smarts,) 
With talon and with bill you fall on him pdlmell. 
Drub him to utterance and pluck his wings as well. 
So never more he stoop for quarry at our hearts. 



CANZONET TO HIS MISTRESS. 

Sweetheart, thy beauty's on the wane: 
The fruit of lusty youth, we twain 
Together, let us cull, my fair: 
Or e'er th'occasion pass us by, 
Our wishes let us satisfy; 
For beauty is no keeping-pear. 

Old age, the enemy of ease, 
Soon makes us wither, as the breeze, 
That sheds abroad the full-blown rose. 
Love but with loving is repaid: 
Love, then, as thou art loved, sweet maid. 
Nor fear discovery to foes. 

If thou of scandal frighted art, 
None better knows than I, sweetheart, 
To hide an amorous emprise; 
A huntsman dumb am I and true; 
And when I have what I ensue, 
I never halloo o'er the prize. 



138 JEAN PASSEXAT. 



SONG IN DIALOGUE. 

Shepherdess. 
Shepherd, dost thou love me, thou? 

Shepherd. 
Ay, I love thee, God knows how. 

Shepherdess. 
As what, elf? 

Shepherd. 

As thyself, 

Shepherdess 

Pitiless. 

Shepherdess. 

This thine over-subtle say 
Doth on no wise me appay. 
Shepherd, without mockery, nay. 
Dost thou love me? Tell me, pray. 
As what, elf? 

Shepherd. 

As thyself, 

Shepherdess 

Pitiless. 

Shepherdess. 

Better hadst thou on this wise 
Said, — ^i love thee as mine eyes." 



JEAN PASSERAT. 159 

Shepherd. 

Too much hate to them I bear, 
For that they door-openers were 
To the sorrows I have known, 
Since thou first to me wast shown. 

Shepherdess. 
As what, df ? 

Shepherd. 

As thyself, 

Shepherd^e 

Pitiless. 

Shepherdess. 

Shepherd, speak more frankly. Nay, 
Tell me roundly, plainly, pray; 
Dost thou love me as thy life? 

Shepherd 

Nay; for it to care and strife 
Msmy a thousand fold is thrall; 
So I love it not at all. 
Being, for a lover's dole. 
But a body without soul. 

Shepherdess. 
As what, elf? 

Shepherd. 

As thyself, 

Siepherdess 

Pitilest. 



I40 JEAN PASSERAT. 

Shepherdess. 

Leave me now this "As thyself." 
Say, "I love diee as myself." 

Shepherd. 
Nay, mjrself I cherish not. 

Shepherdess. 

An thou love me, say as what, 
As what, elf? 

Shepherd. 

As thyself. 

Shepherdess 

Pitiless. 



IN WINTERTIME. 

Now this dreary time of rain 
Saddens eyen the most sane. 
What availeth it to look 
Ever, dreaming, on a book? 

Come and take it from my hand. 
In what stead can it me stand. 
This wherein I study still, 
Save belike for falling ill? 

What shall Plato me avail 
For th'avoiding Pluto's pale, 
Whither followed Socrates, 
Galian, Hippocrates? 



JEAN PASSER A T. 141 

Power from Latin nor from Greek 
Over destiny's to seek; 
Text availeth nought nor Glose, 
Code nor Digest, these nor those. 



E'en the darlings of the Gods 
Needs must answer, when Fate nods; 
Nought avails their Muse Divine, 
Nought to soften Proserpine. 

Nay, th'infemal ferryman. 
Strove he not among his clan 
Dear my Ronsard late to write. 
Who wdlnigh must leave the light? 

Him already, orphan-wise. 
With the water of mine eyes 
Wept I, bathing all his tomb, 
Built of rhymes, in marble's room. 

But the pitying Gods' decree 
Spared the better half of me, 
From the bark his foot withdrew. 
Bearer of the shadow-crew. 

Since of such a heavy grief. 
Then, my soul hath had relief 
And abideth full of joy 
As the Greek who conquered Troy, 



Heart of happiness I'll take. 
Laugh and sing and merry make, 
Sounding on the golden wire 
Of the Cytherdan lyre. 



142 JEAN PASSERAT. 

Nay, and more to boot, IH drink 
Till Uie sun, above the brink 
Peering of the Indian bay. 
In my goUet cast its ray. 



VERNAL ODE. 

The waters' course in sullen wintertime 

With ice was bridled late ; 
But now, in many places, free from rime, 

One seeth them in spate. 

Already fiercelier the torrents flow. 

For Winter on the wing; 
Already, yonder, owns the melting snow 

The presage of the Spring. 

Come, let us leave the house and wander, dear. 

The flowering fields to view: 
The bird of Thrace, * at this sweet time of year. 

Begins her songs anew. 

Complaints and tears and killing cares to those 
Let's leave whose hearts are cold; 

Enough and overmuch we shall of woes 
Have, if we twain wax old. 

Soon, without warning, Death will come, sweetheart. 

His hand on us to lay; 
And 'twill belike behove us to depart 

To-morrow or to-day. 

1 i. e. the nightingale. 



JEAN PASSBRA T. 143 

Incontinent, when in that vale of shade 

Once come we are below, 
Of every joy for evermore bewrayed, 

We shall be full of woe. 

''Alack, there here remaineth/' shall we say, 

"But evermore regret 
"Of having not on earth our sport and play 

"Ta'en, when we might it yet. 

"Seeing that to move stem Pluto never prayer 

"Availeth anywhat 
"And that for knowledge, wealth and beauty there 

"In Hades place is not." 



VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE. 



lO 



VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE. 



SONNET. 

O fragrance-breathing breeze, that all the air 
Enbalsamest with yonder flowerets* scent, 
O gladsome mead whereover, weeping, went 
Damoetas good and Amaranth the fair, 
O leafy woods, o river running there, 
That saw their dole transmuted to content 
And joy ensue upon their languishment, 
Whilst but one soul the one and th'other were ! 
Age hath enforced them carnal joys forbear : 
But, though they now are moved by holy care 
To leave behind them all concern of love, 
Nathless, a gracious memory doth make 
Them love, for sweet rememorance's sake, 
These meads, this breeze, this river and this grove. 



IDYL. 

Fair nymphs of La Fresnaye, 
Who seek the sheltered noo^, 
Far from the common way. 
The springs, the babbling brooks 
And all the wood-retreats, 
Leaf-hidden from the heats. 



14^ VAUQUELIN' DE LA FRESJVAYE. 

Be, nympiis^ your woodsy Tmlrfd, 
With Lea£ige lusw ansyed; 
Let many a ftoweinxg weed 
Carpet die anusrons ^*^^^^ 
So nyOis dieie at 
Lilce jooy to dipril 



I pnthcfy nyixxphs beHijgit, 
Caose in tibe argent tide 
Of the rills azoze sixiibe 
And crystal, side hj ade, 
Sq ^iut thescm at will 
Ma^^wvhcisdirberfia. 



Tne encBud swaid am! 

So on the Tcivet gn9% 
Uoto the water's triQs 
She of my IoYe4ikiDg 
May moddng ditties sing. 



In the deep valleys' i^ooms 
With mshes sweet array 
Your Purest faiding-roomsy 
Where most yon love to play, 
SOy if she will, she too 
May frolic there, like yon. 

SOy nymphs of La Fresnaye, 
Seeing your shady nooks. 
Your limpid fountains' play, 
Your springs, your babbling brooks 
And sylvan shelters, she 
Our woods will love, maybe. 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 



TO HIS LADY FROM THE WARS. 

B^one, my sighs! Go seek the fairest fair 
That ever was! You are more fortunate 
Than I, who no more what I was whilere 
Am, for her absence, so disconsolate, 
Poor wretch, I'm grown! Tell her, nor place nor date, 
Absence, war, other beauty, aye hath wrought 
Her £ur eyes from my heart t'eradicate, 
And pray her pity have of me and thought 

Go, tell her, since that yonder, on Loire shore, 
Her looks I left, her features and her grace. 
Love hath so graven them in my heart's core 
That nothing from my thought can them efface 
And in remembrance them I still retrace. 
Picture to her my constancy, of aught 
Unshaken; show her all my heavy case 
And pray her pity have of me and thought 

Go, tell her how, in many a foreign land. 
In many a hazard, being tired of ease. 
To follow after war I set my hand. 
Armed cap^-pie, content to sweat and freeze 
In martial enterprise by lands and seas; 
How toils nor ills endured nor foemen fought 
Might of her love my memory disseize. 
And pray her pity have of me and thought 



iS2 JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 

Tdl her how, fightinfe in tlie front of war. 
For fiithfTland and life and honour dnc^ 
Love on my hone behind me still I boce, 
Who force and valour to my heart anew 
Still famished, so, with this to hdd me true. 
Nor fear of war's a&ays nor Fxaaoe, distian|^ 
With error, loss and woe, nd^^t make me me, 
And pray her pity honre of me and thought, 

Tdl her how I, couched on the naked eaitii. 
To rain and wind eiposed and cold and heat. 
More tiian my health and strength of tiril and dearth 
Endure nor reck of angfat bat her, my sweet; 
And if bytimes inth ^noianoe and conoett 
Behoveth me co mpoun d, whose Muster hang^ 
Aimoy and irksome is to souk discreet, 
Pray her in pity have me and in thaaj^ 

How to my comrades whiles, far revene, 
I hearken not, or i^ to these and those, 
Talkii^, I Ikt, the answer irketh me; 
How meat and drink and grace I lose, repose. 
And hawks and hounds to me are idle shows: 
If war and arms for her of me be sought. 
If ease unease to me and friends turn foes. 
Pray her in pity have me and in thought. 

Brief, if love more than war avail f endnre, 
Brief, if her heart give not her looks the lie, 
K of her voice assurance me assure 
That, in returning, welomie shall be I, 
Since that our love unsullied is and high. 
My case and Constance to her ear be brought 
Of you; and though I wander fzx and nigh, 
Pray her in pity b^ve me and in thought. 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 153 



THE DAISY. 

In April late, when Love is bom, 
I to the garden went one mom, 
And there the beauty of a flower 
Pleased me o'er any I might see; 
Twas not the burgeon of the bower, 
Lily or rose, that pleasured me; 
It was the Daisy I love best 
Of all the flowers from East to West. 

Its heart of gold it had begun 
But then to open to the sun. 
The perfectest of flowers it is. 
That, in its candour, longer blows 
Than sweetest pink or fleur-de-lys. 
Than pansy, violet or rose. 
Of all the flowers, from East to West, 
I love the dainty Daisy best. 

Let others praise the colours bright 
Of other flowers, that fade at night. 
As of the rose, that lives an hour 
And in one only month's displayed. 
But by my art my humble flower 
Shall flourish still nor ever fade. 
Of all the flowers, from East to West, 
I love the dainty Daisy best 

Would God that I one day my fill 
Might kiss it and that Love's sweet will 
This grace vouchsafe to me that yet 
In season cull and have I may 
That vermeil youngling floweret, 
That waxeth fairer every day! 
Of all the flowers, horn East to West, 
I love the dainty Daisy best 



154 JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 



CANZONET. 

Enough of tears, enoa^ of dull annoj! 
My time of youth I £sun would pass in joy. 
Which yet as Springtide floVreth and is gxeen. 
Behovedi me in study stffl be seen? 
Enou^ of tears? 

What booteth me the courses of the stais 
To know, the influence of Saturn, Mars, 
To measure heav'n, earth, ocean, dry and wet, 
Or on a paper down the world to set? 
Enough of tears! 

What booteth me, in this my youthful time, 
Gnaw nail and brain, to make a deathless rhyme, 
An unoffending table to oppress 
And cause my cheek* grow pale for thoughtfiilness? 
Enough of tears! 

What booteth me in verse great Ronsaid's g^oiy 
To emulate, to know fiill many a story. 
To make a thousand verses in a day, 
What while my brain in smoke distils away? 
Enough of tears! 

Meantime, youth's flower, for uncongenial toil, 
Fails like a lily in a foreign soil: 
Of hunting, not of tears, and war's alarms 
Behoveth speak, of horses, hawks and aims. 
Enough of tears ! 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 155 

Behoveth speak of love and solacement: 
A mistress fair IVe chosen me and gent. 
Whose rank I love and honour and her grace: 
She standeth me in Muse and Phoebus' place. 
Enough of tears ! 

Worth that one love her and be loved of her, 
Should be her husband, friend and worshipper, 
She is, for honest, fair she is and wise 
And my poor verse disdaineth not to prize. 
Enough of tears ! 

Go, then, my song, and in her bosom lie. 
Whose honour, which to me must e'en deny 
Such favour, than her lifeblood dearer is. 
Ah, how my hand doth envy thee thy bliss! 
Enough of tears ! 



SONNETS FROM THE WARS. 
I. 

How long, o Lord, wilt Thou with war, year out, year in. 
Chastise us thus, wherein, by many a land and way. 
Afflicted, wounded, sad, two years well nigh I stray. 
With armour on my back, abandoned of my kin? 
Thou seest,' a masked wolf. Thy scourge ordained for sin, 
These twenty years and more us inch by inch away 
With war doth seek to waste and noble doth array 
'Gainst noble in the field, a state himself to win. 
Seest Thou this war not, Lord, (or, when Thou thunderest. 
Is it for nought that Thou us men astoniest?) 
This war in ten years thrice waged for our sins, in which 
Five hundred thousand folk have perished by the sword? 
K Thou with civil war destroy us, poor and rich. 
Who will thereafterward Thy praises sing, o Lord? 



VAUQUELIN DE LA FRESNAYE. 



lO 



158 JEAN DB LA TAILLB. 

Brofises, of knights-enant, then, the case remembereth me. 

Whom at some wood-end range for tQting one might see, 

Enduring cold and heat, as we do erenso. 

But, if of sweat and toil, of stroke of sword and lance. 

Pistol and rapier, such as I for one can show. 

We all wellnig^ bring back some honourable scar, 

I say diat we o'erpass, we that have trayelled France, 

Your errant knights of old in valour and in woe. 

For tiiat our pains are true and theirs but £sibles are. 



THE BLAZON OF THE ROSE- 

Some love a blossom, for 'tis blue. 
And others choose another hue : 
The beauties of the violet, 
Lily or pink these celebrate. 
And this or th'other floweret 
For vermeil tinct or scent those rate; 
But I, o'er every flower that blows, 
I love the perfume of the rose. 

The praises of this vermeil flower. 
The livery of the morning hour 
That wears, I love to sing and tell. 
Of Venus' flower, that hath the name 
Of one I love and honour weU, 
Nor smells less sweet her own fair fame. 
I love, o'er every flower that blows. 
To sing the praises of the rose. 

Of all the flowers it is the pride 
And every other idx and wide 
For grace and perfume doth outvie. 
It must not fade at night, as do 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 159 

The other flowers, that droop and die, 
But flower m honour still anew. 
I love, o'er every flower that blows, 
To sing the praises of the rose. 

Its sight and scent it doth not shun 
To lavish unto every one; 
But, indiscreet, if any go 
To handle it on wise unfit, 
Its thorny armature doth show 
One must not draw too near to it. 
I love, o'er every flower that blows, 
To sing the praises of the rose. 



LOVE SONNETS. 

I. 

'Tis sweet on Nature's work to look and see 
A meadow green, with flowers enamellM, 
A painted bird, an azure fountain-head, 
A thicket all in leaf, a flowering tree: 
Tis sweet to look upon the windless sea, 
To note the dappled rainbow overhead: 
A well and fairly compassed garden-bed, 
A lovesome landscape stretching far and free, 
A thousand flowers in Uossom sweet it is 
To see, pinks, roses, violets and lys; 
An ardent star, a rosy flush of dawn, 
A gracious Spring, a clear sun in the skies. 
Are sweet; but I avouch that, in our eyes. 
Your beauty's sweeter yet to look upon. 

God, to show forth to us some ray in you 
Of His own beauty, did your features mould 



i6o JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 

And iot your face, with care and pains untold, 
Borrowed the rose's and the lily's hue. 
Your eyes' irradiance from a star He drew 
And made your hair of pure and livdy gold: 
Brief, He in you His likeness to behold 
Gave us, our thought unto Himself to woo. 
He gave you life, so to our mortal view, 
By that which but a spark is of His own, 
His own immortal beauty might be known. 
So, for my part, I'm happy, in my dole. 
That, in this war, the grace was granted me, 
So fair a beauty in my way to see. 



What pleasure can I feel, in this delightsome Spring, 
A thousand landscapes, pied with gold, red, green, to view. 
The verdant fields and woods to note, the waters blue. 
The flower-enamelled meads, the birds upon the wing? 
How can I joy, indeed, to hear the small fowls sing. 
That in the leafy woods their little consorts woo. 
Or list the nightingale, among the leafage new. 
My sighs and my regrets for ever echoing? 
What booteth me to scent, among the woods and bowers. 
Rose, lily, violet, pink, a thousand blooming flowers, 
When war endureth still with us and she moreo'er. 
For whose sake Peace I willed the world of battle ease 
And fain had seen sweet Spring regild the painted leas. 
For whose sweet sake I lived, is on the earth no more? 



Love, cruel Love, thou causer of my woe, 
Rigorous and false, unjust and harsh, ah me I 
How happy were the world-all without thee. 
What joys possessing, but for thee its foe ! 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. i6i 

If God thou be, a God of ill, I trow, 
Thou art; for sore misfortunate is he 
Whose luckless heart, beneath thy stem decree. 
Thou hast once set to suffer evermore ! 
Son, not of Venus, but of some she-bear. 
That bore thee in some forest's frightful shade. 
Why our desires so devious hast thou made? 
Why work'st thou, tyrant, so in Love's affair 
That what I flee I have and have it still, 
But never have I what I seek and will. 



COMPLAINT OF SPRING. 

Lovers all, in this fair time 

Of the Prime, 
Life, despite the tears of France, 
In a thousand pleasures pass, 

Save, alas! 
Me, who live but in mischance. 

Earth newborn with heav'n above 

Plays at love, 
Casting off the cruel cold. 
Dons its blossom-broideries new, 

Hue on hue. 
Red and blue and green and gold. 

But I, wellnigh in despair. 

Mourning wear. 
So of all my dole be kenned; 
Sable weeds I bear for flowers 

And the hours 
Of my youth in tears I spend. 

II 



i6a JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 

Hark, the birds their bridals make! 

Fidd and brake 
Echo with their amorous song; 
Whilst I only, sad and sole, 

With my dole, 
Dirging go the woods along. 



Red and gold, the blossoms run 

In the sun. 
By the heay en-coloured stream; 
But, in middle flowering-time 

Of my Prime, 
Pale of face I go and dream. 



Yonder, hark! the nightingale 

Tells the tale 
Of the woes of Philomel; 
But on other fashion I 

Plaining hie. 
Calling Death in dale and dell. 

What availeth me Spring's air. 

Soft and fair? 
What to see the earth a^smile, 
K Love's poignant cares and sore 

Ruthless war 
Wage on luckless me the while? 

If, for others' laughter, I 

Moan and sigh? 
If the heav'ns so contrary 
Are that they with Winter-time, 

Snow and rime. 
Hide the pleasant Spring for me? 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 163 

If my heart in rigour cold 

Some one hold? 
If she be so young of years 
That to every word of love, 

Loath to prove 
What it is, she shuts her ears? 



Like as, with the year's new blood, 

From the bud 
Springs at dawn the opening rose. 
So, in charms and rigorous will 

Waxing still. 
She I love and honour goes. 

Nymph, o'er-young, alack! Love's weal 

Yet to feel 
Or true passion's worth to know. 
That of him to-day a jot 

Reckest not. 
Whom thou boldest in such woe, 

Though great kings thou shouldst, fair lass, 

Overpass 
Still in honours, wealth and sheen, 
Less thou shouldst not, loving me. 

Reckon thee, 

Wert thou duchess, ay, or queen: 

« 

For 'tis I to heaven's hill. 

At my will, 
Can, by an immortal rhyme. 
Raise and staUish so thy fiune 

That thy name 
live for Osdr shall to all time. 



x64 JEAH DE LA TAILLE. 

Where is honour's, worth's reward. 

If ignored? 
Since there's nought so dear as glory. 
What avails to be fair^aced, 

Sweet and chaste. 
If it be not known in story? 



Bom beneath a luckless star 

My loves are. 
Must I, Uien, forever chase 
Her who takes, nor e'er, poor swain! 

Gives again 
^y heart prisoned by her grace? 



I myself must hate, that so 

Aftergo 
Her who doth nor love nor prize 
Worth in me or any good. 

When I could 
Otherwhere do otherwise. 



Yet, if no more hope have I 

Her to spy. 
What, woe worth it, shall I do? 
Can I, being neither loved 

Nor approved, 
Hope to be agreed anew? 



Who alas ! himself embroils 

In Love's toils 
Bondman weak must reckoned be, 
For the more he doth essay. 

Thence away 
Still the less availeth he. 



JEAN DE LA TAILLE. 165 

For the fourth tune, wellaway! 

France, to-day, 
In its entrails fedeth war; 
Yet in me of banes and woes 

More, God knows, 
Do I feel and battles more. 



But, to make an end of prate 

And debate, 
Would that as of yore were I 
Mid a thousand steels ableed! 

For, indeed, 
Than to pine 'twere better die. 

Then, adieu, fair nymph, adieu. 

Since, in lieu 
To my pain of being kind, 
To a living death ^ou me. 

Mate to be, 
Over-cruelly dost bind. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 



IN PRAISE OF A COUNTRY LIFE. 

O happy he who may among his kin 
live, free of hate and envy and chagrin^ 
Among the woods, the meadows and the springs. 
Far from the turmoil of the populace, 
And who needs not his liberty abase, 
To please a prince's passions or a king's ! 

No care of things unsure he hath nor heed; 
On vain delusive hopes he doth not feed; 
No favour dupes him with its promise fair; 
His lie-deluded youth he doth not curse 
Nor in his breast an hundred Furies nurse, 
When in the end he findeth nought but air. 

He trembles not, when, on the raging sea, 
The surges tumble, driven contrary 
By howling winds, that stir up wave on wave; 
And when anights he sleeps with all his heart. 
No trumpet, sounding, wakes him with a start. 
To send him from his bed unto his grave. 

Ambition stirs his heart not to a glow; 
He masketh not his mind with cheating show 
Nor violates his Mth in anything. 
He importuneth not a prince's ear, 
But, with his lot contented, lives in cheer. 
Is his own court, own favour and own king. 



170 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

I give you thanks, o sacred deities, 
Gods of tiie hills and meadows, woods and seas, 
Who to my will contentment do impart. 
From my thought driving carefulness away. 
Unfruitful expectation and affiray 
And the desires of the ambitious heart 



My thought within my fidds is all enclosed; 
If my limbs sleep, my spirit is reposed; 
No cruel cares go preying on my brain. 
My heat by early morning cool's allayed: 
If 'tis too hot, I get me to the shade; 
Too cold, I run till I am warm again. 



If I lodge not within those gilded halls. 
Superb of front, with azure-vaulted walls, 
Enamelled all about with many a hue. 
Mine eye upon the treasures of the meads. 
Rich in pinks, marjoram and lilies, feeds. 
And tender-coloured blooms of Springtide new. 

In palaces, with vain pomp swelled and lewd. 
Ambition, favour, hopes that but delude 
And gnawing cares are mostiy resident. 
Within our fields the fairies have retired, 
Queens of the woods, with tresses still untired, 
And there Love dwells and solace and content. 



Nought in this life but what to me is dear; 
The holy music of the birds I hear. 
When they salute the heavens in the dawn. 
And the sweet murmur of the babbling rills 
That issue, purling, from the high-crowned hills 
And busy them with watering lea and lawn. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 1 7 1 

How sweet it is to see two turtledoves 
Billing each other with a thousand loves, 
Wing pressed to wing and beak to rosy beak! 
Then, ravished by their gracious loveliking, 
To slumber by some running waterspring, 
Whose dulcet murmur seems of Love to speak ! 



How sweet to see, beneath the swart night's face. 
When to the moon the sun hath given place, 
The wood-nymphs in the middle boskage meet, 
Their snowy bosoms to the breeze afford, 
Dance, frolic, cast each other on the sward 
And make the herbage tremble to their feet! 

Mine eyes from their disports to heaven eftsoon 
I raise,, attracted by the hornM moon, 
Clear silver-rayed, that minds me, with her beams. 
Of the fair fable of the Latmian herd. 
And me a mistress wish as fair and kind; 
But fain on wake I'd clip her, not in dreams. 

Thus I content my spirits in the night; 
Then, when boon Phoebus warms us with his sight, 
A thousand other new disports I try 
And varying pleasures follow high and low; 
Anon I fish, anon a-hunting go 

And for the birds anon in ambush lie; 

I 

Nor loveUking omit, but on such kind 
That nothing I therein but pleasure find, 
My darling liberty preserving still; 
And whatsoever toils for trapping me 
The God may weave, when fain I would go free, 
J have the puissance, as I have the will. 



lya PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

Ye gentle sheep, companions kind and true, 
Brakes, hedges, bushes, meads and mountains blue, 
Bear witness, all of you, to my content! 
And you, o Gods, this boon of you I crave, 
Until my life go down into the grave, 
That I may know no change maleficent 



THE DREAM. 

She whom I love so dear, in dreams, unto my bed. 
Her cruelty put by, to cheer me came last night 
Sweet was her speech, her eyes of laughter full and light 
And many a thousand Loves went fluttering round her head. 

Courage, by dolour urged, I took, with woeful breath 
To make complaint aloud anent her heart of stone. 
And with a tearful eye, for ruth to her did moan 
And prayed her end my woes with pity or with death. 

Her kiss-compelling lips soft-opening, thus she spoke 
To me with dulcet speech and answered, ^Cease ^y sighs 
''And tears no longer thus force from thy wounded eyes: 
''She who hath caused thine ill can heal the heart she broke." 

Alack, illusion sweet! Ah, pleasant mirade! 
How little durable it is, a lover's bliss! 
Me miserable, alas! Thinking her eyes to kiss. 
Little by little, wake I felt my dream dispeL 

Yet, by a dear deceit, long time thereafter, still 
Mine eyes fast shut I kept nor might my dream forsake; 
But my sleep passed away and come the hour of wake, 
I found my gladness false and real but mine iU. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 173 



COMPLAINT OF SPRING. 

The earthy but late with frost beseen. 
To-day is carpeted with green; 
Her breast is beautified with flowers. 
In love with her's the wanton air; 
Heaven laughs to look on her so fair: 
My tears wax with the waxing hours. 

Green are the meadows and the brake 
New leafage dons for April's sake; 
The fields a thousand treasures show: 
But I, of all my glory bare, 
No colour still but sables wear; 
Black-dad without, within, I go. 

The birds, in many a fluttering band. 
Their warblings fling o'er sea and land 
And soul to wood and lea impart. 
Their soft songs quicken my distress 
And Philomel's complaints no less 
Are trenchant falchions to my heart. 

The songbirds verdure seek and bloom; 
But I, I seek me but a tomb. 
To see my sorrow limited. 
Toward the sky they take their flight; 
But my unsolaceable spright 
Upon obscurity is fed. 

The lover in his lady's eyes. 
At this sweet time of Spring, espies 
A sweeter hope, new-burgeoned, sit. 
Her eye, whose absence I lament. 
Mine every hope from me hath rent; 
I fear and nothing hope from it. 



174 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

The wild beasts, in this time of change. 
The fields, the shores, the forests range. 
As Love doth urge them, to and fro; 
But the regret, that goadeth me. 
Still fiercelier, the more I flee, 
Ensueth me, where'er I go. 



One seftth now the new-blown rose. 
That opens out its leaves and shows 
Its vermeil visage to the mom: 
Whereas, alack ! my paling face. 
In my life's April, fades apace. 
Of my sun's rays for ever shorn. 



Now may one see the yellowing wheat, 
Soft-waving, hither, thither beat 
In billows by the dulcet breeze; 
But I, at heart I have a crew 
Of sighs, that in my bosom brew 
An hundred thousand stormy seas. 



O Jovesome childhood of the earth. 
Desire's prolific source of birth, 
Mother of loves and meadows pied. 
Whom all the world unites to greet. 
What profits me thy coming sweet, 
If winter still with me abide? 



Queen of the blossoms and the year. 
Still crowned that art with colours clear. 
Sweet solace of the minds of men, 
Whereassoe'er thy graces be, 
Pleasures and pastimes follow thee : . 
But mine, where hast thou left them, then? 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 175 

When all the world a-laugh I see, 
Then, then, all sad at heart, I flee 
Unto some place apart from them, 
Like as the widowed turtledove, 
Losing her faithful mate and love, 
Fercheth upon a withered stem. 

The sun-rays never on me gleam; 
A wandering, solitary dream 
Still covers with its veil mine eyes; 
Nought do I see but shadows ch-ear; 
Funereal dirges but I hear; 
Nought but the tomb I love and prize. 

France, between parties torn and wried, 
At last hath seen war's rage subside 
And fall before a pleasant peace. 
Alack ! Why did I wish for it, » 
Since war between my heart and wit 
Still fiercelier rages, without cease? 

My thoughts still keep within my head 
An alien noise, a tempest dread. 
And brawl and battle night and day; 
But whosoever win the fight. 
On me alone the losses light; 
*Tis I the cost of all that pay. 

How Love tormenteth me, alas! 
Ah me! How quickly joy doth pass! 
How constant dolour is and ill ! 
How swift of turning Fortune's wheel ! 
How £sdse is hope, how flitting weal! 
How subject man to misery still! 



1 It, i.e. peace. 



176 PHIUPPB DESPORTES. 

Nay^ in this world beneath the sun, 
Ally as it pleaseth Chance, doth run; 
Sie only queen is here below. 
If any Proyidence there be, 
Her residence in heav'n hath she; 
Eisewhere men nothing of her know. 



CANZONET. 

One kind look from thine eyes, o cruel goddess mine. 

Sweet eyes, my sole delight, 
Can bring me back to life and banish the repine. 

In death that holds my spright 
Turn those clear suns of thine and with their lively flame 

My thread of life reknot: 
One only look's enough. Nay, wilt thou not, my dame? 

No, marry, thou wilt not 

One amiable word from out thy Ups, my fair. 

So it be choler-free. 
Can change a lover's lot, who pineth in despair 

And loveth none but thee. 
There needeth but a "Yes," a smile on him conferred, 

To glorify his lot. 
Heav'ns I What delays ! Wilt thou, then, never speak the word ? 

No, marry, thou wilt not. 

Rock deaf unto my cries, fulfilled of ice and snow, 

Soul without love or truth. 
When I burned less, thou more humanity didst show 

And readier wast to ruth. 
Let me then leave to love, from her my thought distract 

And turn to otherwhat 
But is it true, my soul, that thus thou e'en wilt act? 

No, marry, thou wilt not. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 177 



TO LIBERTY. 

Lovesome Liberty, long-desired, 
Where art thou, goddess fair, retired, 
A luckless prisoner leaving me? 
Turn not from me thy face, alack! 
Come back, o Liberty, come back! 
Return, o lovesome Liberty! 

Too well thine absence makes me feel 
That which I had whilere of weal. 
What while thou wentest guiding me. 
And how I should, had I been wise, 
Without more languishment or sighs. 
Have lost my life in losing thee. 

Since thou hast past from me away. 
My soul is mated, night and day. 
With thousand thorns of pains and fears; 
A fire upon my veins hath caught 
And my two eyes, to well-heads wrought. 
Do rain down blood, in lieu of tears. 

The care that in my breast hath place 
Is legible on my sad face; 
My colour pale as death is grown ; 
My back is bended as a bough 
And without daring aught avow, 
I'm dying of an ill unknown. 

Rest, sport, ease, joyance sweet and sooth. 
The little care of buxom youth 
And pleasures all from me are fled; 
Nought likes me now of all their rout 
Excepting, lonely and devout, 
T'adore the eyes my blood that shed. 

12 



178 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

Of other subject reck I not; 
My hand indites no otherwhat; 
There is my service everywhit. 
Another road I can not fiu-e; 
The little time I otherwhere 
Employ for lost I reckon it 

What envious God, what mocking spell, 
Hath changed my life, that was so well, 
Fulfilling it with woe for me? 
And thou, o Freedom so desired. 
Where art thou. Goddess mine, retired? 
Return, o lovesome Liberty! 

The features of a warrior maid, 
A heavenly port, in light arrayed, 
A mind accomplished in all art, 
High-plumed discourse and thought divine, 
A thousand virtues, — these, in fine, 
The wizards were that won my heart. 

Alas, in vain I cry to thee, 
O fair, o precious Liberty! 
O'er-puissant charms my heart compel 
In vain for thee, in vain I sigh; 
Behoveth that "Farewell!" say I; 
"Forever, Liberty, farewell!" 



SONNETS. 
I. 

Can it be true that I've so much endured whilere 
For eyes I see to-day without or joy or pain? 
Where are the charms that wove for me so fast a chain? 



PHILIPPE DESPORTBS. 179 

What of her locks is come, her crispy golden hair? 

Upon her faded face with open mouth I stare. 

Whose bloom did her of old inspire with such disdain; 

And in myself I scoff at my pursuit in vain 

And render thanks to Time, that loosed me from the snare. 

That which no friend's advice, no counsels Old or new. 

No absence nor rebuffs, availed in me to do, 

The course of Time hath done, that put my love to rout 

And made me sage at last, healing my spirit's smart. 

For, whenas from your face the roses he did out. 

The thorns he rooted up, on like wise, from my heart. 

Those, who shall read these rhymes, which I with tears 
have writ, 
For glory nor for ease, but moved of misery. 
Seeing the straits through which dire Love ha^h driven me, 
Will, wise at my expense, henceforward flee from it. 
What luckless soul, whose pains nor day nor night remit, 
Ere suffered ills which might with mine belikened be? 
That which may not be thought, how shall I tell it thee 
Or paint with words a case which doth confound the wit? 
Still stubbornly I wrought at seeking ice in flames. 
Softness in diamonds hard and constancy in dames. 
Ensuing ruth in hell and sunshine in the night. 
My youth in this vain strife I've wasted without boot; 
Service I've sown and reaped but sorrow and despite 
And of my longsome toils repentance is the fruit 



Let who will fare in quest of honourable shows, 
Of treasures and of pomps, of favours little sure. 
Of palaces high-built and mansions made to dure, 
Mere hives of careful thoughts, of troubles and of woes. 
I'd liefer see a mead with lily and with rose 



i8o PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

Well carpeted and fed wiA rills of silver pure 

And screened about widi trees delectable, ixx cure 

Of thint and grateful shade, what time the Dogstar glows. 

There, from ambition free, I watch my life go by, 

Envied of none on earth; for no one envy I. 

King of my every wish, contented with my lot, 

With vain and foolish hopes I do not feed my thought; 

Fortune against my faith assured availeth nought 

And my repose of mind by chance distraught is not. 



Cool is this fountain-head, and its soft-welling tide, 
Its argent-coloured lymph, to speak of Love do seem; 
The tender greensward grows and waxes round the stream 
And elm-trees from the heat the place at noontide hide. 
The leaves obedient to the amorous breeze abide, 
That softly sighs about that pleasaunce of a dream : 
Qear in die middle day's the sunshine's flaming beam 
And earth beneath the heat is cloven on every side. 
O thou that passest by, aweary of the way. 
Parched up with thirst and scorched by the hot noontide ray. 
Thy footsteps stay thou here, where luck hath guided thee. 
Th'agreeable repose shall heal thy weary feet; 
The shade and the cool breeze sliall do away thy heat 
And in the fountain's tide thy thirst extinguished be. 



DIANE. 



I proflfer you these rhymes, that Love enforced me write. 
Hot from the fire your eyes. His torches, lit in me. 
Not my poor pains to vow to immortality: 
My youth for its reward looks not to such a height. 
My wishes' limit is to bring before your sight 



PHIUPPE DESPORTES. i8i 

The Tariable case of my captivity, 

To sing yotu: prscises, if entreated well I be, 

Your rigours to accuse, if I endure despite. 

In vain inventions rich, I will not magnify 

My sufferings, my faith, your beauties, your disdain] 

Enough that in the road of truth my pen remain. 

Marry, for glory's sake my pen I do not ply; 

Nay, rather do I voice the clamours of my pain. 

As a sick man that pines for death and may not die. 

2. 

The pleasant time is come again of jocund Spring, 
Enforcing in despite the sullen Winter flee; 
Under the dulcet breeze, the tender grasses, see. 
Already to and fro, Love-fluttered, softly swing. 
The woods have ta'en again their verdant covering; 
Heav'n laughs, the air is warm, the soft breeze fans the lea, 
The nightingale's complaint upon the greenwood tree 
Doth to the amorous spright a rapturous languor bring. 
Two Godheads, Mars and Love, at cnce are in the field; 
This one his barbM dart and that his sword doth wield; 
One bathes in mortals' blood, the other in their tears. 
Let who will follow Mars and live and die in arms; 
For me, I'll follow Love: my wars and my alarms 
Tears and chagrins shall be, sighs, glances, hopes and fears. 



O Night, if it be true that thou ordained art 
For taking soft repose, how is it, darkling Night, 
How is it that in thee my dole knows no respite. 
Nay, that through thee my pain still waxeth and my smart ? 
No otherwhat I do than turn me, part to part; 
Each comer do I choose, essaying left ancl right; 
And as it were a sea, a-foam with surges white, 
Sad thoughts and sullen cares debate it in my heart. 



i82 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

My weary eyelids oft upon mine eyes I close 
And call on sleep to come and heal me of my woes; 
But from mine eyes it flees and will not tarry there. 
Yet thou, mine only good, my pains so solacest, 

bed, to thee I tell the secrets of my breast, 

1 who the breath of life dare hardly breathe elsewhere. 



In such a cruel case, alack! who languished aye? 
In such care-cankered nights, in such unhappy days? 
Who ever wandering went in so confused a maze? 
Who ever must confess so rigorous a sway? 
A present ill I brook and yet a worse foresay; 
Wars wax on me and nought I hope of aids or stays; 
Goods few and brief I have and great are my afirays; 
The more I go, my dole goes waxing with my way. 
Affictions every hour assail me on each hand; 
The moon's my only sun and grief my native land; 
To wreak I run, from what I seek should fugitive; 
Irksome to Gods and men, myself I irk no less; 
I'm weary of myself and am mine own distress; 
In brief, I cannot die nor either can I live. 



What booteth me to see yon blooming plain. 
Fulfilled of flowers and shrubs and blossoms new, 
To mark the meadows pied with many a hue 
And yonder fountains with live silver rain. 
But so much water to revive my pain, 
Oil for my fire and to my tears 'tis dew. 
Since her I see not, absent from whose view, 
An hundred deaths a day I die in vain. 
Alack ! What b(9oteth me, that from her sight 
Far, for my weal, I am, since, day and night, 
In me the deadly arrows of her looks 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 183 

I bear? None other thought my heart may hold; 
As he, whom fever keepeth hot and cold, 
Forever dreameth of the water-brooks. 



6. 

If 'tis to love to keep the eyes still bent 
To earthward, low to speak and often sigh, 
To wander, lonely, dreaming, far and nigh, 
Full of a fire that never waxeth faint; 
If 'tis to love upon the clouds to paint. 
Sow on the waters, to the winds to cry. 
The night to look for, when the sun is high. 
And seek the sun, when dark is imminent; 
If 'tis to love to love oneself no more. 
Hate life and welcome death for end of wax, 
Then in my breast encamped is Love's whole host 
Yet none the less of this I can me boast 
That neither fire nor torment nor duresse 
Can my desires enforce me to confess. 



Those who subjected are to Love's arbitrament 
On many a fashion changed become from day to day; 
Myself by long approof have learned it, wellaway! 
Having on divers wise been changed by his intent 
A hart I've been, since I his law first underwent. 
Still bearing in his flank the shaft that did him slay; 
Then I became a swan and did my death foresay. 
Plaining my piteous fate in tones of soft lament. 
Thereafterward a flower with down-drooped head was I; 
Then I a spring became, that suddenly ran dry. 
By mine eyes having shed what waters were in me; 
A salamander now I am and live in flame; 
But soon to voice, I hope, like Echo, changed to be, 
My lady's beauties still unceasing to acclaim, 



i84 PHIUPPE DBSPORTBS. 

8, 

Whenas Love first hath bsoaght beneath his pleasant sway 
A heart that careful was its liberty to hold, 
He taketh him at first in nets of silk and gold 
And doth for him the heat of his fierce fires allay. 
A thousand little Loves abont his footsteps play; 
He batheth him in bliss and joy and cheer untdd; 
Beauty and all^;resse and hope his eyes bdiold. 
Still hovering in advance, where'er he takes his way. 
But, ah! Well nigh forthright his bUss b^ins to wane; 
The prison waxeth stndt, the fire grows hot amain; 
The silken fetters turn to iron bonds and greaves: 
Love is a sun-kissed rose, new-Uown and full of dew, 
That flatters lovers' eyes with buxom vermeil hue, 
But hides an asp, alack ! within its lovesome leaves. 



When, you and I, we shall have passed th'infemal stream, 
Damn'd, for our several sins, unto the deeps of hell, 
I for idolatry, that loved your eyes o'erweU, 
You, for my heart you slew with cruelty extreme. 
If your fiiir eyes I see forever on me beam, 
Neither the eternal night nor pine unquenchable 
My courage shall confound nor all the pains that dwell 
In those infernal deeps shaU cruel to me seem. 
You, too, if pleasure yet you take in your disdains 
And in my miseries, still may moderate your pains 
With watching me endure the torments of my doom. 
But, since, on divers ways, we in this world above 
Sinned, you for sheer despite and I for too much love, 
J fear they'll sunder us, each in a several room^ 



PHILIPPE DBSPORTES. 185 



CLEONICE. 
1. 

Those who, for overgreed or lack of wit to guide. 
Aboard a feeble ship, adventure far from land 
And run to risk their lives upon a stranger strand, 
Urged by a lewd desire, fore'er unsatisfied, 
When, by just Neptune's wrath constrained and terrified, 
They lose the hope of life and see death near at hand. 
For lightening of the ship, each of the trembling band 
His chiefest treasure casts upon the roaring tide. 
So, when a fair desire I kindled felt in me. 
Rejoicing, I embarked upon tibe amorous sea. 
Which covered was with winds and billows in a trice. 
To ease my ship, I cast, without demur or fear, 
Soul, freedom, overboard, all that to me was dear; 
Nor do I anywhit regret the sacrifice. 

a. 

By reason of the years, avengers of my woe, 
The gold of your bright locks turn silver I shall see; 
The twin suns of your eyes extinguished sdl shall be 
And Love, confounded, thence must turn away and go. 
The beauties, that in you to-day so sweetly show, 
Shall take their favours back, avouching Time's decree; 
Age will your visage pale, that is so bright of blee, 
And all the charms despoil, that now I cherish so. 
The pride and scorn, which now forbid you to love me. 
Will with the years become repentance and unease. 
As, day by hurrying day, your charms shall fade and flee; 
And peradventure then it will not you misplease 
In my rhymes to relive, all hot with love-desire, 
Even as the Phoenix life reneweth in the fire. 



i86 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 



Poor desolated soul, that must thy dearest part, 
Without thine own default, dissevered from thee see, 
Sigh not so sore; nay, cease to rail at Fate's decree 
And 'midst thy torments show a high undaunted heart 
Bethink thee of this world and its inconstant art. 
Which makes our course of life as changeful as the sea. 
Belike, after the ills which Fate hath heaped on thee, 
It yet with hapi»er chance will salve thee of thy smart. 
For, even as the sky, so Fortune changes still; 
The sun ensues the night, the heat the cold doth kill; 
After the sombre storm, dear weather comes again; 
The lover, whiles content, is frantic by and by 
And gladness comes anew to the despairful swain: 
So all goes changing still beneath the changeful sky. 



Sea, whiles which, calm and smooth, arrested in thy bed. 
Ebbing and flowing, still dost peaceably abide; 
Then, changing all at once the aspect of thy tide, 
Displayest but despite and rage unlimited; 
Time, Motion's pristine sire, that far'st with tireless tread, 
Still measuring the course of heaven far and wide, 
And all the world with change, at will, dost override. 
Nor is withal a jot of all thy power forsped; 
Sun, circling without cease, that metest us ^e day. 
Then mak'st for us the night, taking thy light away. 
And to the changing year allottest heat and cold; 
So, if my happiness be brief and swift of flight. 
Comfort behoveth me take from your changes' sight. 
For that the common law it is of Nature old. 



O miserable toils, o vagabonding thought, 
Continual cares, false hopes, quick raised and fall'n again. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 187 

Affections only feigned and over-true disdain, 
Remembrance, but too soon by absence put to nought, 
Forgetfidness, by love most true and perfect bought, 
Adventurous desires, to soar too madly fsdn. 
And you, of my despair ye messengers in vain. 
Sighs, to my soul oppressed that air and vantage wrought, 
What, shall these living deaths, these durable annoys. 
These dark and troubled days, these nights devoid of joys, 
Shall they my spirit hold in sadness ever new ? 
Shall I know never aught of solacement or ease? 
Alack! I know not, I; I only know that these 
Annoys I suffer but for being over-true. 



HIPPOLYTE. 



I wander all alone, with slow and tardy pace. 
And measure, still a-dream, the wildest solitude. 
Choosing the sylvan haunts, where never men intrude. 
The fastnesses unfrayed of any human trace. 
This bulwark but I have to fend my woeful case 
And my desires to hide from all the curious brood. 
Who, seeing from without my sighs and frantic mood. 
Judge how the fire must bum withinward of the place. 
Henceforward not a wood there is, nor rock nor stone, 
River nor plain nor hill, but by my voice hath known 
The tenour of my life, from all but them concealed. 
Yet but in vain I hide nor may avail to flee 
Unto so wild a wild, so deep-envaled a field. 
But Love my steps ensues and thither follows me. 



Slumber, pacific son of solitary Night, 
Fair foster-sire of Life, to whom each creature owes, 



i88 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

By thine enchantmcnte sweet, forgetfulness of woes, 

Tliou salutary salve of every wounded spright. 

Why, God that favourest all, me hast thou in deq>ite? 

Why am I, only I, with toils reloaded so. 

Whilst her black steeds dank Night doth guide and all below 

The moon thy wonted grace enjoy of common right? 

Where is thy silence gone? Where is thy rest, thy peace? 

Where are thy wide-winged dreams, that, like a cloudy fleece, 

Are wont to bear our thoughts toward Oblivion's shore? 

brother thou of Death, how hast thou me forgot ! 

1 cry thee aid; but thou, sleep-drowsed, respondest not; 
And I, still waking, bum in midnight's horrors frore. 



ODE TO SLEEP. 

Sleep, dulcet solace of our eyes. 
Beloved thou of earth and skies, 
Soft son of Silence and of Night, 
That canst our spirits loose and let 
Our hearts the cares of Day forget. 
Consoling choler and despite. 

Approach, desirM Sleep! Alack! 
Too long hast thou from us held back. 
Already half the night is sped 
And yet thy coming I await, 
To chase the cares importunate, 
Th'unwelcome inmates of my head. 

Close thou mine eyes and cause me sleep. 
Watch on my bed for thee I keep; 
With head against my pillow prest, 
Here motionless I lie and calm. 
The better to receive thy balm. 
That salveth sorrow and unrest. 



PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 189 

Nay, haste thee, Slumber languorous! 
What is it makes thee tany thus? 
There's nothing here to stir thy peace. 
No dogs about this quarter bay; 
The cock prodaimeth not the day; 
One h^uceth not the clamorous geese. 



A brooklet, flowing hard herenigh, 
Goes softly purling, prattling, by: 
With its dull murmurous ditty it 
And the obscurity of Night, 
Most cool and noiseless, thee invite, 
To the repose of Nature fit. 



AU creatures, saving me alone, 
Some easance now of trouble own. 
By favour of diy spell divine: 
All labouring beasts beneath the skies 
Now rest in peace, with sleep-sealed eyes; 
Open to tears are only mine. 

Since thou availest, at thy will. 
With ease and solace men to fill. 
Whatever sadness in them reign. 
Come, prithee, now, thy power to show. 
Some solacement on me bestow, 
Amiddleward my present pain. 

Since tiiou to us canst represent 
The good desired for our content, 
However distance*«undered, Sleep, 
O gracious Sleq>, care-solacer, 
Unto mine eyes come picture her 
Again, whose absence still I weep! 



I90 PHILIPPE DESPORTES. 

Her sunny eyes let me re-view, 
The venneil lilies of her hue 
And that her high majestic mien: 
Her speech once more come let me hear, 
'Twixt ecstasy and wonder dear 
That held whilere my heart serene. 

The thought of seeing her each day, 
Still otherwhen the cheer and stay 
Was of my nights, too happy then. 
Now that I'm sundered from her sight, 
That faded amorous delight 
Give me at least in dreams again. 

Though all these dreams, indeed, are nought. 
No matter, they content the thought: 
Deluded thus I love to be. 
Come, hasten, then, to ease my heart. 
Brother to Death, folk say, thou art; 
Life's father shalt thou be for me. 

But I go calling thee, alas! 
Whilst, swift of wing, the night doth pass 
And lets the vermeil dawn draw nigh. 
O Love, thou tyrant of my breast, 
Tis thou alone that hinderest 
The balms of slumber from mine eye. 

What wondrous cruelty! Ah me! 
My freedom have I given thee, 
My heart, my life and my delight; 
And thou, o barbarous one, un^un 
Wilt render me, to ease my pain. 
One sorry solitary night! 



/ 



GILLES DURANT. 



GILLES DURANT- 



THE MARIGOLD, 

The lovesome violet I love 
And pinks and pansies dear I hold. 
The vermeil rose; but, all above, 
Forsooth, I love the marigold. 

Fair flower, that lovedst heretofore 
The God who giveth us the day, 
Unhappy shall I name thee or 
O'er-constant but in loving, say? 

The God who changed thee to a flower 
Hath not bereft thee of thy will : 
Bright weed, thou feelest at this hour 
The puissance of his beauty still. 

Still, in the splendour of his sight. 
Thy languorous countenance doth glow, 
And still, when absent is his light, 
Thy beauty fadeth evenso. 

I love thee, turnsole, sad at heart; 
I love thee, blossom of mischance, 
For like unto myself thou art 
In constancy and sufierance. 

13 



194 GILLES DURANT. 



The lovcsome Tiakt I love 
And pinks and panaes dear I hold. 
The Tcnnefl rose: bat, all above, 
FoiBoodi, I love ^e 



CANZONET. 

TO BIS mSTSKS. 

U; fimest, tfaioag^ tiliy heart 
Anon tfaon fedest oomse 
The %s^ of that sweet smart. 
That makes as love pe rfo rce, 

On the swaid soodi 
Come let os take our fill 
Of case, whilBt dmedi sdll 
The Springtide of oar yoatfa. 

Or e'er the dulcet day 
Of this our age in flight 
Be given for a i^ejr 
Unto the shades di nigh^ 

Let's leisure take 
Our life at ease to live 
Nor heed to envy give, 
But love and merry make. 

The sun, indeed, is shorn 
Of all his rays at e'en ; 
Yet, with the break of mom, 
He hath again his sheen: 

But this our day, 
When once 'thath lost its bloom, 
Descendeth to the tomb 
Nor thence retumeth aye. 



GILLES DURANT. 195 

Yea, and the shadows blest, 
That fill the reahns below, 
But counterfeit, at best, 
Love's sports in empty show: 

Among these sprights, 
He hath no puissance more; 
The taste the dead ignore 
Of Venus's delights. 



Nay, lying sad and prone^ 
Among the myrtles pale, 
Their sweet days they bemoan, 
Forspent without avail, 

Lamenting shrill 
That, though they're quit of life. 
The wish thereof to strife 
And sorrow stirs them stilL 



In vain and still in vain 
To quit their stead they sigh; 
In vain they yearn, again 
To see the day on high: 
The dead ne'ermore. 
Once past the river's brink, 
Whereof the shadows drink. 
Set eyes upon Life's shore. 

Then let us kiss and share 
Our fill of love and mirth. 
There is no kissing, fair, 
Beneath the graveyard earth. 

Do we not feel 
How Time, with hurrying feet. 
That thief of pleasance sweet, 
Our youth from us doth steal? 



196 GILLES DURANT. 

Come, then, coquettish maid. 
Let's steal a march on Fate, 
That dotfi our day o'ershade. 
Oft ere the mom wax late. 

On the sward sooth 
Come let us take our fill 
Of ease, whilst dureth still 
The Springtide of our youth. 



MARIE DE ROMIEU. 



MARIE DE ROMIEU. 



HYMN OF THE ROSE. 

Here fain am I to sing the beauties of the rose, 
That of all flowers in it the fairness doth enclose. 
If aught of fair there be within a garden-ring, 
It is the rose newblown in the sweet time of Spring. 
The fingers of the dawn are rosy; rosy-red 
Is lovely Venus* mouth and roses are her bed; 
And eke in Paphos isle, her immemorial bower 
Of the sweet rose's scent is full, Love's proper flower. 
The heads of noble dames with roses are arrayed; 
The rose the jewel is of every simplest maid: 
The Graces' bosoms still with roses are besprent; 
The heav'ns are all fulfilled with their divinest scent. 
Bacchus the worship-worth, the deity twice-born. 
With blossomed roses doth his well-decked board adorn; 
Yea, he without surcease by wine doth roses pour 
And wine, to boot, in turn, by roses sheds galore. 
The lovelorn maid withal enbalsameth the chest, 
Wherein she stores the weed of him she loveth best. 
Whenas my last desires to paper I commend. 
By testament I will, appointed to that end, 
A thousand rose-trees have about my grave-place set. 
So I thereof may have an ample coverlet; 
And on my funeral stone, for all men to behold, 
These verses shall they grave in capitals of gold; 
''She, who hereunder sleeps, beneath this marble stone, 
Of all flowers all her life best loved the rose newblown 



300 MARIE DE ROMIEU. 

And loved it on such wise that, after Death's cold hand 
Her spirit had despatched unto the shadow-land, 
Her bier with roses set, about it and above, 
She wiUed to have, as what she over all did love." 



SONNET. 

TO HER SON. 

Our hue of red and white, our goodliness and grace. 
Wane with the waxing years, are lost and pass away; 
Strength, in due time, its lord no longer doth obey 
And age, that bringeth all, doth stir us from our place. 
Virtue alone it is that Time may not efiace; 
Unto the happy stars its own it doth convey 
And still to raise them up ensueth night and day; 
No robber may it steal, whatever be his case. 
Ensue it, then, my son; since that, with learned writ, 
The certainest of goods that man can have is it: 
Ne'er doth it us forget, but still on us doth wait. 
The stable to the frail and earthly to postpone 
And follow on the false, for good assured and known, 
The folly of the fool it were to imitate. 



JEAN BERTAUT. 



JEAN BERTAUT. 



IN DEFENCE OF LOVE. 

HI we remember that, alas ! 
Throned in men's hearts unthank doth sit; 
Wrongs ever graven were on brass 
And benefits in water writ. 

This Love approveth to his own, 
He who pains blendeth with delights; 
Those who his favours most have known 
Still only celebrate his sleights. 

And if of his effects malign 
The fruits are from our sowing bred, 
We overpass his gifts benign 
And lay our sins upon his head. 

He bears a flambeau in his hand, 
Our souls to lighten to their aim; 
And we, like moths about the brand, 
Do run to bum us at its flame. 

To us his pinions lendeth he, 
Wherewith to wing it to the skies; 
But we, with mortal vanity 
We lime and clog them, idiot-wise. 



204 JEAN BERT A UT. 

So of the pinions which he had 
Did Icarus the use perverts- 
He for his weal withal was dad 
And did employ them to his hurt 

Love, child though figured of our whim, 
The sire is of this world-all great; 
But our soul, as regarding him, 
Is as the viper to her mate. 

With amorous impatience, she 
Seeketh his couplings and her fill 
Of him once taken, thanklessly 
Him with her venom straight doth kill. 

But he, ' reviving from his death, 
Wardeth from slumber wit and heart; 
For still the spirit slumbereth, 
That is not wakened by Love's dart. 

The fire of Godhead sheer is his; 
All things are quickened by his nod; 
For perfect unity he is 
And perfect unity is God. 

The soul, whereon his power doth take. 
Is changed to what it loves thereby; 
Love, making us love God, doth make 
Us Gods ourselves beneath the sky. 

The dances of the stars he leads 
And Nature fecundates at will; 
So, if he be an evil, needs 
He is a necessary iU. 

* !• c. Love. 



JEAN BERTA UT. 205 

The soul he purgeth with his light 
And fear by him is put to nought; 
He chasteneth the lover's spright 
Of every base and sorry thought 



Vice, quelled and daunted in his cause, 
Loseth for us its parlous charms; 
He makes us virtue love, the laws 
Of honour, eloquence and arms. 

He fills us with the generous wine 
Of wish to win enduring name. 
And amorous rendering us, in fine, 
To make us loveworthy doth aim. 

Impossible from him is flight. 
So soft his spells are and so mild; 
Whoso hath never felt his might 
May well insensible be styled. 

Why, therefore, him who swayeth all 
With gibing mockery brave and blame? 
He who his conqueror doth miscall 
Augmenteth but his proper shame. 

The scorn that stirs in us and ire, 
After enjoyment consummate. 
From this arise that our desire 
For better knowledge will not wait 

Behoveth judge and after love: 
But we the contrary have wrought; 
So Love, that is all else above. 
Is not to blame, but our rash thought. 



2o6 JEAN BERTA UT. 

For, after all, in Love, the fiudt 
Of loying what's not fidr and well 
And loving not what is, how call't 
You will, 's alone condemnable. 

But this sole point may give to know 
If Love our troubles cause or not. 
That most of our chagrin and woe 
By lack of loving is b^ot 



CANZONET. 

Th'inexorable skies 
So rigorous to me are, 
The sorriest wight that sighs. 
Comparing him with me, might boast his lucky star. 

Nought do I night and day 
But early call and late 
On Death, whose long delay 
Prolongeth upon me the insolence of Fate. 

All-nightly do I steep 
My pillow with my tears; 
Nor, even ii^en I sleep. 
Can slumber's spells belull my sorrows and my fears. 

Nay, if I dream a dream, 
It greateneth my distress; 
For this, which doth but seem. 
Doth of my waking woes the sorry truth express; 

Truth inconceivable, 
£xcept of his sad soul. 
Who hath, on feshion fell, 
Learned from his own chagrin to pity other's dole. 



JEAN BERTA UT. 207 

AU peace, all joy away 
Have hastened to depart, 
Leaving my soul a prey 
To many a thousand cares, that batten on my heart. 



All justice, faith and ruth. 
Mildness and constancy, 
To malice and untruth 
Yielding, in human hearts extinguished are for me. 

Ingratitude repays 
My friendship and my truth, 
And calumny essays 
My torments and my woes to make unworthy ruth. 

At the storm's cruel beck. 
To perish they me leave. 
And running upon wreck. 
Pity from all, but help from no one, I receive. 

Brief, there in land or sea 
No woe is, old or new, 
But wageth war on me 
And causeth me assay what pain and care can do. 

And what makes harder yet 
My present misery. 
Remembrance and regret 
It is of past delight, that Heav'n hath refl from me. 

Oh, happiness gone by. 
That ne'er again may be. 
Why should I not, ah why. 
In losing thee, have lost rememorance of thee? 



JoS JEAN BBRTAXJT. 

Aladcl of mj dd^^ 
But mcmoiy doCfa abide, 
Sad mcmoiyy that Uig^ 
And turns die tboogjit thereof to torment ereqr tide ! 



TneqnitaMe Fate 
This relic having made 
To me a torment great. 
Could I but more have lost, I were the less dismayed. 



STANZAS. 



Alas, if I must love and be not loved in turn. 
Deceived by idle hope, what profit I by it? 
I'm like the taper, that, upon the table lit. 
Still, other folk to serve, itself away doth bum. 

Fair eye, soft conqueror diou of mortals hi^ and low. 
That favours promisest and torments giv'st and pain 
Give that, which, with a smile, thou promisest in vain. 
Or promise, at the least, but what thou dost bestow. 

Ah, softness pitiless, that, feigning and untrue. 
Didst, in an hour unblest, such bliss to me allot. 
Since it your promise was that love in me b^ot, 
I'll e'en to love be false, as to your promise you. 

Would that, my fevered heat beginning to wax less 
And heart endeavouring to rebecome its own. 
Without deceit or feint, I had desired and known 
My error to coirect, as it I can confess! 



JEAN BERTA UT. 209 

But with eternal chains myself constrained I fed, 
Whose links might I avail to sunder or undo, 
It never might betide that, to my vows untrue. 
Another's lack of faith should render me less leaL 

Nay, all the cruel strokes of amorous repine 
So little to afifect my fortitude can do 
That still in love to be too constant and too true 
May of good sooth be said to be a vice of mine. 

My hope was that the fire, whose ardent flaming might 
Is of my reason seen to triumph still anew, 
Should either with its heat in turn enkindle you 
Or, falling weak, become extinguished in my spright. 

But, whereas common fire itself is, at one stroke. 
Of water quenched and doth o'er cold the victory win. 
Mine, burning in my tears, freezeth your heart and in 
Its contrary doth live, its contrary provoke. 

My reason so in vain opposeth this my flame; 
My love celestial is and may not death aby; 
Or, at the least, it but with me myself may die: 
For me, indeed, to live and love you are the same. 

The fire that was of old Chimaera's breath of bale 
By earth extinguished was and eke by water fed: 
Mine is alike to hers; the earth above my head 
Alone may put it out, if aught thereto avail. 



Let not your mind be stirred, soul of my soul, to ire. 
If more than of behoof I dare in loving you. 
O'er-high, indeed, 's the flight; but, I being all a-fire, 
If I tow'rd heav'n ascend, God wot, 'tis nothing new. 

«4 



3IO JEANBERTAUT. 

Like as one aeSth flame tend apward to die sky. 
Toward yonr beanties' heaVn I on like wise tend still: 
Bat it by natme doth and by intendment I, 
It of necessity and I of my free will. 

Nay, knowing this my flame cciestial and divine. 
Nought, saving to die Gods if s equal, can I love. 
A noble daring let this rain grace of mine; 
And if I needs mast £dl. 111 fiiU from heaven above. 

Away, desireSy diat ciaid and huddle in earth's lap! 
Far radier would I be, in noble joys and woes. 
An ea^e smitten down by a great thunderclap 
Than a swan growing cdd within a garden-dose. 

No; in so hi^ a flight the storm I do not fear; 
Affiight of danger holds me not fix)m my emprise; 
That which for bridle serves to spirits without cheer 
To mine is but a spur that pricks it tow'rd the skies. 

It pleaseth me diat Fate should my designs rebuff; 
The sweets of victory won are doubled by the stress; 
And that a tiling's to gain with easance is enough 
My mind of the desire thereof to dispossess. 



COMPLAINT FOR THE DEATH OF 
HENRI QUATRK 

'Tis not for me thou liftst thy head. 
Great sun, from out the middle main; 
For thou, thou shin'st not for the dead 
And I am dead to all but pain; 
Dead unto all the joys of life 
And living but for care and strife. 



JEAN BERTAUT. an 

Wherefore thy cresset's light I flee, 
Since voluntary exile here, 
As in a tomb, hath buried me, 
In this deserted place and drear. 
Where many a sorrow and regret 
Me, worm-like, day and night long, fret. 



Now feel I what a bitter bane 
Are pleasures to the memory. 
Whereof desire while we retain. 
Enjoyment lost of them have we. 
And how to have not had of yore 
Is better than to have no more. 



My pleasures all away are fled, 
Done by my whelming woes to nought; 
My happy days are past and sped. 
As waters by a tempest brought. 
And nought have left me, at the last. 
But the regret of pleasance past. 



Alack ! Regret, that dost torment 
My soul, in sorrow's bier entombed. 
Thy malice leave on me to vent. 
Seeing my life is all consumed. 
Nor trouble with thy bite of dread 
The sorry peace of the poor dead. 

Enough, whilst yet I was on life, 
I of thy harsh assaults have known ; 
Enough, then, of thy rigours rife 
To heaven above I've made my moan. 
Why, then, with dole for ever new 
Me in the tomb dost thou pursue? 



8za JEAN BERTAUT. 

Why wilt thou ever thus apply 
Unto my wretched thought to bring 
The days when this my heart beat high 
With glory, joy and triumphing, 
That now is fi^ed with griefs and woes 
And sighs that hinder all repose? 



Seest not that, in these seas of dole, 
My constancy that battle down. 
The more remembrance stirs my soul. 
The move, for languishment, I drown 
And being no more, am firetted e'en 
With memories of having been ? 



Since, 'neath the storms of angry Fate, 
My every hope must needs succumb, 
All my contentments past and late 
Are present agonies become 
And woeful now it is to me 
My happy dajrs to oversee. 



O my sole glory and my good. 
That now but dust and ashes art, 
Sans whom I'm but a trunk of wood, 
Down-stricken by the lightning's dart. 
From what a high felicity 
Thy death precipitated me! 

Alas! Thou living, no annoy 
Its head upon my path upreared, 
Such fortune following me and joy 
That all I hoped and nothing feared. 
Now, down to dole and sorrow brought, 
All things I fear and hope for nought. 



JEAN BBRTA UT. 2 13 

Yet how can heart henceforward fear 
The ills with which this world is rife, 
That, dead for ever to all cheer, 
Hath nothing more to lose in life 
And in despair surviving sidll, 
Accoutred is for every ill? 

No, no; deliverance in me 
From hope and fear thy loss hath bred. 
Mine all I've lost in losing thee; 
Now nought but life itself I dread: 
To live on yet 's the sole mischance, 
My sufferings that can enhance. 

For, groaning underneath the stress 
Of an inexorable woe. 
Having survived my happiness, 
My all and eke myself e'enso. 
Life is a punishment for wrong 
To me, for having lived so long. 



EPITAPH ON MADAME LUGOL. 

O thou that weep'st her dead, be not amazed so soon 
To see this lovesome day thus ended at its noon: 
Thus do the laws prescribe, to Nature which belong; 
The fairest weather still is that which is least long. 
But virtue's blossoms bloom more than a single Prime 
And whoso liveth well hath lived enough of time. 



214 JEANBERTAUT. 



EPITAPH ON MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE 
DE BOURBON. 

Here, in this narrow room, two ^reat princesses rest, 
(Pure spirits now that be, of flesh and blood undad,) 
Whose hearts of goodness' self were evermore possest 
And nothing dear in life save only virtue had. 

Illustrious fortune both enjoyed beneath the sun. 
Though Hym^ never shed its lustre on their ways, 
The law of holy vows forbidding it to one 
And to the other death, in th' April of her days. 

One, hoping, after death, for second Ufe, her head 
And soul and eyes to God uplifted on such wise 
That in this world she lived, as being to it dead, 
So she might purchase here the kingdom of the skies. 

The other, upon whom mischance long warred erewhen. 
Hath by her actions shown how much her heart the care 
Of pleasing earthly souls despised and minds of men, 
For that to her chaste soul Earth's goods unworthfiil were 

Of that illustrious house, which reigneth on French earth, 
'Midst luxury and ease were one and th'other bom; 
But what to mortal men availeth royal birth 
'Gainst Him who reapeth kings and royalties like com? 

Passer devout, that seest how quickly Time's impair 
The gifts destroys which men for sovereign good enshrine. 
That seest what these are and knowest what they were. 
Learn tbQu from their decease to brace thyself for thine. 



JEAN BERTA UT. 215 

Learn from their greatness, which the common law of all 
That be availed to show how brief is mortal breath, 
That nothing here below against death temporal 
Can that which virtue can against eternal death. 

Learn from these lines that we, admitting to our spright 
The love of greatnesses and wealth, deluded are, 
The world and all its pomps nought being, in God's sight, 
Even as, in heaven above, this earth is but a star. 

Well in their lives their faith in this great certitude 
The holy couple showed, who sleep here side by side; 
Their greatness folk so saw by humbleness subdued 
And their unspotted souls unstained of poisonous pride. 

Their humbleness revere and copy, if thou can, 
Bethinking thee fore'er, if thou to them wouldst win. 
That Heave's postern-gate is low and strait of span 
And that, except one stoop, he may not enter in. 



GUY DE TOURS. 



X 



GUY DE TOURS. 



TO THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Grasshopper, on the leaf 
Thou pipest at thine case; 
And I, poor wretch, my grief 
Bewail beneath these trees. 

Thou feedest upon dew; 
Upon these tears I feed. 
That all my face bestrew 
And witness of my need. 

The heats, that owe their name 
To summer, harm thee not; 
But Passion's fatal flame 
In me is ever hot 

Thou flittest at thy will; 
But I in prison lie. 
Thy ditty's jocund still 
And mine is but a sigh. 

Thy fever on the breeze, 
The dulcet zephyr, dies; 
But mine to new unease 
Is kindled by my sighs. 



220 GUY DETOURS. 

Thou vauntest thee too much; 
Too much I me abase, 
Beneath yon Paphian's dutch, 
Who bears me off apace. 

On one point, grasshopper, 
Alike are thou and I; 
Thou diest piping, dear, 
And singing still, I die. 



TO fflS BOWER, 

O bower of deUght, 

That echoest still 
With the vagabond flight 
And the garrulous trill 
Of the frolicsome birds, 
On wings bright of sheen 
That flit through the green, 
In nought-fearing herds. 

Sweet, sweet is it not, 
In the Midsummer sky, 
'Neath the canicule hot, 
When the dogstar is high, 
To have over one 
A screen of thick leaves, 
Which the ardour relieves 
Of the tyrannous sun. 

Ne'er, heaven forfend. 
May the fires of the sky 
Thy hazels ofiend. 
That planted have I ! 



GUY DETOURS. 221 

Nor hail neither wind, 
Fierce blowing and fleet, 
Nor rain neither heat, 
To thee be unkind! 

From thee far alway 
The fatherless child 
Of the light of our days, ^ 
The mole, be exiled, 
Nor ever the worm, 
The pest of the brake. 
Its harbourage make 
In thy wood's middle firm! 

But, under thy shade. 
May the nightingales true 
And the brother brigade 
Of the song-singing crew 
Still flutter, unseen. 
And sing the fair face. 
The rigour and grace 
Of Anna, my queen ! 



SONNETS. 



z. 



None but myself disconsolate I see; 
Whether in the woods, the river or the lake. 
By meadow, moor or marish, for love's sake 
I see none miserable save only me. 
Love in the meadows butterfly and bee. 



1 i. e. orphaned of light, as being blind. 



222 GUY DR TOURS. 

Lig^t-footed deer widim the kafy brake. 

Fish in the waters, birds in air, all make; 

And all but I live happy and care-free. 

Even the climbing ivy, at its giee, 

The knotted stems of elm and chestnot-tree 

With its embracing arms doth straitly ply. 

Brief^ in the woods, the fields, the lake, the stream. 

Where'er I cast mine eyes, I can bat deem 

That none there is disconsolate bat L 



Eyes have I bat to see my lovely foe; 
But to desire her, no desires have I, 
No sighs, except for her alone to si^ 
Nor thoughts, save thinking upon her to go. 
Within my brain she is imprinted so 
That I nought else can reckon low or hi^ 
Nor talk of any others fan or nigh 
Nor sorrow but for her nor {Measure know. 
I have no feet but in her steps f ensue. 
No hands except for stretching her unto, 
No heart but of her beauties full to be. 
Brief, I have nothing but is hers nor can 
Call myself mine, so much I am her man; 
And yet so cruel still she is to me! 



An thou wouldst have me love thee not, my fiiir, 
Do out thine eyes, more lucent than the day; 
The Graces' seat, thy forehead, hide away; 
Put off thy smile, put off thy lovesome air; 
Thy dainty smiling mouth go banish, where 
ELisses all frolic roundabout and play; 
Thy port forswear, so full of pleasance gay; 
Do off Love's constant harbourage, thy hair. 



GUYDE TOrURS. 223 

Away thy rounded ivory bosom do; 

Away thy cheek and all its rosy hue; 

Thy voice, thy hands put off and parlance sweet. 

For whilst so many beauties yet in thee 

Abide, despite myself, behoveth me 

That, full of love, I slay me at thy feet. 



To give you wreaths, unto the margents of the main 
To carry sand it were or azure to the skies. 
Lilies upon your breast and radiance on your eyes, 
Musk on your lips and pearls upon your hands to rain. 
Fulfilled are you of flowers ; the honours, that pertain 
To you, the virtues high, that all in you do prize. 
Your lilies, roses are, your chaplets, on such wise 
That cause all men admire the hortyards of Touraine. 
These verses, then, instead of flowers, I proffer you 
To-day, when one and all beneath the vault of blue 
The Holy Maid * revere, from whom you have your name. 
Chaplets and wreaths, God wot, will wither all in time; 
But age can never blight these blossoms of my rhyme. 
No more than it can blast the flowerage of your fame. 



Love but immortal is in heaven's immortal air. 
The passion to maintain, which I profess with pride 
For all the charms one sees in you on every side, 
Which make you here below the fairest of the fair. 
Love only on his back a double wing doth wear. 
Unto the heav'n of your divinities to guide 
My vows and sighs, when I no longer may abide 
Your rigour's doubled stress, and carry you my prayer. 
Except to do me hurt. Love hath no pointed dart 

> i. e. the Virgin Mary. 



294 GUYDE TOURS. 

Nor hath he toils ezoq>t to take therein my heart; 
He is not armed except to lord it me above ; 
No bow he hath in hand, escept to shoot at me. 
Nor fires, except my heart to martyrize it be: 
Brief^ Love is only Love that yon I still may love. 

6. 

Nay, leave me in repose. Is't not enough for thee. 
Love, with thy savage stress to whdm me eveiy day. 
But thou anights no less must hinder slumber lay 
Its dulcet spells upon the careful eye of me? 
Leave me to rest; dse Death, all things on earth that be 
Which wasteth in the end, will ravish me away 
Incontinent; for none that's made of mortal day 
May here below live long, excepting rest have he. 
Yet, no, Love; suffer not that I should fall on sleep; 
Nay, rather, night and day still cause me vigil keep, 
Whilst of her charms the thought doth sweedy in me stir. 
More good do I receive, whenas I think on these 
Than when, in slumber sunk, I lie and am at ease; 
Far rather would I die than leave to think of her. 



You'd think, indeed, to look upon her lovesome face, 
To note her gentle looks, to hear her dulcet speech. 
Her mild and winsome ways to mark, that no impeach 
Might ever be in her of rigour or mi^giace. 
And yet, an if the truth one knew but of the case. 
All is but guile and fraud, such as might overreach 
Laertes' crafty son, ' such as might Circe teach 
His moly black and him under her thrall t'abase. 
Her looks are lovesome but the better to deceive; 
Her speech so dulcet is but £dsehood's nets to weave, 

1 i.e. Ulysses. 



GUY DETOURS. 225 

Wherein poor lovers' hearts to catch like you and me. 
Her mien, her fashions mild are but to do us wrong, 
Her eyes but us to slay. In brief, to end the song, 
But sweet she is that she to us may bitter be. 

8. 

This amorous complaint in sadness forth I sighed, 
Seated upon the knees of Erato the fair, 
What while Megaera and Alecto, dreadful pair, 
France with misfortune dire overwhelmed on every side; 
When French with lawless French with murderous rapier vied 
To cut the thread y-spun for them by Clotho's care. 
Themselves so casting down to Pluto's nether lair. 
O wild-beast cruelty! O war unsanctified 1 
When Bourbons and Lorrains, our princes, sword in hand. 
Each other's throat to cut, ran riot in the land. 
Each fain at heart to see the other's race attaint! 
To hear not their debates and drown the cannon's din. 
Nor see the standards wave divergent, kin from kin, 
Down in these lines I set my amorous complaint. 



15 



THEOPHILE DE VIAU. 



THfeOPHILE DE VIAU. 



SOLITUDE. 

In this dim, solitary glade. 
The stag, that bells the brooklet's trill. 
Bowing his head above the rill. 
Delights to view his proper shade. 

The naiad of the water-springs. 
Opening each night, at evening-red, 
Her crystal-gated dwelling-stead, 
A serenade for listeners sings. 

The nymphs, that in these tree-shades run. 
Spurred by the ardour of the chase. 
Still seek some secret trysting-place. 
The satyrs' ambushes to shun. 

At foot of yonder oak-tree hoar, 
Wellnigh as ancient as the sun. 
Love, Sleep and Bacchus, Zeus's son, 
Silenus buried heretofore. 

A cool and darkling silence sleeps 
Within these ancient elm-trees' shade; 
And through the branches thick-inlaid 
The breeze with amorous softness sweeps. 



230 TH&OPHILE DE VI AU. 

The soul with more contentiaent greets 
The pleasance of this dulcet site. 
Where Philomel by day and night 
Her piteous threnody repeats. 



The howlet and the nightjar eke 
Here nest and here the were-wolves bide; 
Nor justice criminals, that hide 
Here from its wrath, doth ever seek. 

Venus hath altars in these woods; 
And here to study Love is fain: 
No foot of mortal man profane 
Troubleth these sacred solitudes. 

This forest holy is, )rwis: 
Twas not for it without annoy 
That here of yore the shepherd-boy 
Love hid, whom Dian taught to kiss. 

For very innocence, Love might 
His nets spread, childwise, in this green; 
And Dian, as the forest queen, 
An equal license had of right. 

Dan Cupid, with his dulcet fire 
Cleaving the darkness of this dale. 
Did for Apollo's eyes unveil 
The leveling of his heart's desire. 

To the dim shelter of this glade 
It was that Hyacinth did flee 
Since when the sun hath vowed to be 
The enemy of every shade: 



THJ&OPHILE DE VIAU. 331 

And jealous Boreas, hard by, 
Goaded to rage by amorous pain. 
The death was of that youthful swain. 
For whom he evermore must sigh. 



Dear, sacred wood, my confidant, 
I swear, by yonder sun above, 
That never will I cherish love 
Whereof thou shalt be ignorant. 

Mine angel in these woods shall go; 
And the sun, looking on my sweet, 
The sharpness of his ancient heat 
Again shall, of remembrance, know. 

Prithee, Corinna mine, draw near; 
Let's couch upon this carpet green 
And enter, for a better screen. 
The hollow of this grotto here. 

Come, open, pray, thine eyes of light; 
A thousand Loves lodge therewithin 
And with their arrows minikin 
O'errunning are thy pupils bright. 

Love from thy lovely looks respires, 
And thy slave waxen, bounden he 
In his own bonds himself must see. 
Condemned to bum in his own fires. 

Immortal, sure, that beauty is 
Whereat the very Gods are caught 
Nay, by thine eyes, I never thought 
That thou wast half so fiair as this. 



t33 THiOPHILE DE VI AU. 

Who in a i»ctore, trait by trait, 
Thy lovesome looks would represent, 
A fairer &ce most needs invent 
Than ever Nature could create. 



The Fates for ages at the stuff 
Whereof thine eyes were foshioned wrought; 
And better yet to do in aught 
Methinks Time hath not jrears enou^ 

How fuU of grace thy face doth show, 
How fisdr with lovely red and white! 
Clearer it is than the sun's light 
And smoother tiian new-fdlen snow. 

God! How thy tresses pleasure me! 
They frolic on thy forehead white; 
And seeii^ them so fair and bright, 
I'm jealous of their kissing thee. 

Sweet mouth of ambergris and rose. 
For me thou speakest stiU amiss, 
£xcept thou tell me, in a kiss. 
That Love's the fairest flower that blows. 



Enkindled by thy lovesome sight 
And by thy voice's dulcet air, 
I see the woods and streams aflare 
With love of thee, as is my spright 

If thou thy rosy fingers wet 
In yonder fountain's crystal tide, 
The God, therein that doth abide, 
Is taken fast in passion's net 



THAOPHILE DE VIAU. 233 

Present thy naked face to it: 
Thine eyes will with the water smile 
And in its mirror write the while 
That Venus hither came to sit 



Therein she will be drawn so feat 
That all the Fauns will fall a-fire 
And of thine eyes, for love-desire, 
Will never know the counterfeit. 

List to the God, that beckons thee 
Within his element to pass: 
Hark how he sighs and says, ^'Alas! 
Alas!" for his lost liberty. 

Him of this fancy undeceive 
And turn thee from this mirror fair; 
So wilt thou drive him to despair 
And me of jealousy relieve. 

Seest thou yon wilding myrtle-stem. 
Yon trunks and rocks? Methinks, indeed, 
They take of us o*er-careful heed; 
My love doth jealous grow of them. 

Up, dear one ! Let me cull in sheaves, 
From mom to night, thy kisses sweet. 
See, how, to make our love a seat, 
Yon myrtle-bush hath shed its leaves. 

Lo, where the linnet and the thrush. 
Upon the rose-tree boughs hard by. 
Their tuneful little throttles ply ! 
Hark, how they carol in the hush ! 



234 thAophjle de viau. 

n. 

Come, come, my Dryad, come ! 
Their serenades of Spring 
The amorous warblers sing; 
The murmurous waters hum. 

Lend me thy bosom's charms, 
To drink its bahny scents; 
So shall my blissful sense 
Faint in thine ivory arms. 

Deep in thy tresses' maze 
111 plunge these hands of mine 
And to thy charms divine 
Do worship with my gaze. 

Love guards us. Have no fear, 
Mine angel! Art not mine? 
Thou blushest 'neath my gaze: 
I see thou lov'st me dear. 

Heav'ns, how thy timorous guise 
Doth greaten my desire! 
Roland not more on fire 
Was for Armida's eyes. 

Nay, let me thee embrace: 
None seeth us but Love. 
The eyes of day above 
Find herewithin no place. 

The winds, that cannot be 
Silent, yet cannot hear: 
That which we may do here 
To them's a mystery. 



SAINT-AMANT. 



SAINT-AMANT. 



SOLITUDE. 

How dear to me is solitude] 
These places, sacred to the night, 
Far from the loud world, what delight 
They are to my disquietude! 
God! How mine eyes it doth assuage 
To see these woods, which at Time's birth 
Were present and of every age 
Have still been holden worship-worth. 
Yet green with clustering leaves and fair, 
As in the world's first days they were! 

A frolic breeze about them steals 
And with bland breath caresses them: 
Nought but their heaven-scaling stem 
The greatness of their age reveals. 
Pan and his demi-Gods of yore 
Sought shelter here, when thundering Jove 
The heavens with the deluge dove. 
Destruction on the earth to pour; 
And from these leafy turrets high, 
The waters scarce did they espy. 

How featly on yon flowered thorn, 
Wherewith in love the Springtide seems. 
In harmony with these my dreams. 
The languorous nightingale doth mourn! 
Ah, how my soul delights to view 



23S SAINT-AMANT. 

Yon mountain's oveifaanging steeps. 
Which with such mi^t the luckless woo, 
Inviting them to desperate leaps^ 
When crael Fortune harrowetfa 
Their saddened souls to seek for death! 

How sweet to me the turbulence 
Of yonder wandering torrents loud, 
That from their source in diff and doud 
Hurl down into these wilding glens, 
Then, ^ding through the shrub-set nooks^ 
Like serpents crawling o'er the grass, 
Transmute themsdves to babbling brooks, 
Where, on her throne of crystal glass, 
The nai^ reigns with lilied head. 
As 'twere upon her natal bed! 

How sweet this marsh's peace I fed. 
All fringed with saUows, alder-trees. 
Osiers and lotes, that grow at ease 
Nor ever fdt the woodman's sted! 
The wood-nymphs, seeking for the cool. 
Come hither, alder-pipes to lop 
And gather lilies from the pool. 
Wherein the frogs one seSth hop. 
That in the water haste to hide, 
When any cometh on their side. 

There waterfowl a thousand dwell 
In quiet and repose nor fear 
The wily fowler, fierce and fell, 
With all his gins and mortal gear: 
The heron, glad in that sweet day. 
For his amusement preens his plumes. 
This doth the fire of love allay; 
All take, with innocent content. 
Their pleasance in that dement. 



SAINT'AMANT. 239 

Nor summer heat nor winter cold 
Have seen bark on this water flare 
Nor cart nor waggon track this wold, 
Since first the one and th'other were. 
No thirsty wayfarer hath e'er 
Hand in this crystal dipped for cup 
Nor ever roedeer in despair 
Its hunted life here rendered up; 
Nor traitorous angle ever drew 
The fishes from its ripples blue. 

How goodly to my sight appears 
Yon ruined castle, fallen to waste, 
By Time's unsparing tooth defaced 
And crumbled by the wanton years! 
The sorcerers here their sabbat make; 
The crew of goblins mischievous 
Here harbour, who, for malice' sake. 
Our senses cheat and harry us; 
And here, in many a nook and cell, 
The howlet and the viper dwell. 

The night-jar, with its funeral song, 
The mortal augury of doom. 
Makes music for the goblin throng. 
In yonder halls of endless gloom. 
Where from a beam of curs^ yew 
Dangles the grisly skeleton 
Of some sad swain, himself that slew 
For love of a fair cruel one. 
Who of her rigour did not deign 
One look of pity to his x)ain. 

But Heaven, impartial judge and stem, 
That doth th'etemal laws maintain. 
Against her, for her dour disdain, 
A fearsome sentence did decern. 



940 SAINTAMANT. 

For erer round these rottiiig bones 
Her Sony shade disconsolate, 
StiQ wandering, with si^^ and groans 
Bewaileth that her wretched fete. 
Having, to add to her affiri^t, 
Her crime still present to her sight. 

There, on some marble slab one sees 
Devices of the days gone by; 
Here age hath blotted out well nigh 
The letters graven on the trees. 
The ceilings of the highest place, 
Corroded by the tooth of Time, 
Are fallen into the vaulted base, 
Where snail and paddock them beslime. 
Through the cleft hearth-stones ivies grow, 
Beneath the shade great walnuts throw. 

Thereunder, in a certain spot, 
A vault, so dim with darkness dumb 
That, even if Phoebus there should come, 
Methinketh he would see no jot; 
And heavy-beaded Slumber there, 
In Nonchalance's arms fast held. 
Still sleepeth, far from every care. 
By charms of silence grim enspelled: 
Mid sheaves of poppies, sluggard-wise, 
Supine upon his back he lies. 

Within the hollow gelid grot, 
Where even Love might be a-cold. 
Fond £cho calleth, as of old, 
Upon her lover unforgot. 
Thither come I, withouten bruit, 
And with the heavenly harmony 
Of this my dulcet, well-skilled lute. 
Her mournful mood caress, whilst she 



SAINT'AMANT. 341 

Doth in that voice with mine concur 
Which for a body serveth her. 



The ruins whiles abandoning, 
I scale the summit of yon clifif. 
Which soareth up, the place as if 
It sought wherefrom the mistwreaths spring. 
Thence I descend the sloping side 
Unto the beach below the steep 
And look with pleasure on the tide, 
That hath the shingle nigh as deep 
Sapped as Palaemon's royal throne 
Of sponges made and coral stone. 

How sweet a thing it is to stray 
Upon the margent of the sea, 
Whenas in calm and peace is she, 
After some storm hath passed away, 
Whenas the bearded Tritons ride 
High on the swelling billows' course 
And with their conches' clamours hoarse 
The echoes startle far and wide, 
Whose sound obedient silence binds 
Upon the most impetuous winds! 



Ruffling the sand, bytimes, the main 
Murmurs and surges angrily 
And o'er the pebbles rolls, which she 
Brings up and carries off again. 
Now on her marges doth she spread, 
Memorials of Neptune's ire, 
Drowned seamen, yea, and monsters dead 
And vessels, crushed by wreckage dire: 
Now pearls and amber up doth bring 
And many another precious thing. 

16 



«4a SAINT'AMANT. 

WUlaa, doir and smooth as nugbt loay be, 
A floating mirror setms the tide, 
Through which bytimes may be espied 
New heav'ns emerging from the sea. 
The Sim therein so full is seen, 
Viewing his own bright visnomy, 
That one is whiles in doubt if he 
It is or his reflected sheen; 
And first it seemeth to our eyes 
That he hath fallen from the skies. 



SONNETS. 

I. SPRING NEAR PARIS* 

Zephyr to be in love with Flora hath good cause: 
The goodliest thing she is that could enchant his sight: 
With her renewing sheen, one sees all cares take flight. 
As liberties, before her eyes I love, and laws. 
Who would not joy, when Dawn the veil of Night withdraws 
And songbirds thrill the woods with sonorous delight? 
Thereunto, with the flowers, I feel my heart grow light 
And my lute answers them, after the winter's pause. 
The sward at heaven smiles a smile of mild desire 
And from this winding bank I see the sun's soft fire 
Caress the waters' course and bosom ripple-curled: 
Night kisses Mom and Eve the Day that laughs above; 
All is with love afire; one thinketh that the world 
Is in the Spring reborn, only to die of love. 

2. SUMBfER AT ROME. 

What strange new heat is this, by which ive roasted are? 
Have we transported been unto the tropic zone? 
Or hath some scatterbrain anew the bridle thrown 
Upon the horses' necks that draw Dan Phoebus* car? 



SAINT'AMANT. 445 

The earth, that cracks and yawns with many a gaping scar, 

Beneath the torrid rays doth |)ant and sweat and groan 

And all the Roman plain a waste of sand is grown, 

That drained of moisture is by yonder flaming star. 

The unrelenting rays, that shower from the sky. 

Enforce the Tiber's self like Heracles to die. 

Its dried-up rushes' shade and withered reed^ betow. 

Its quality divine its doom may not arrest; 

Yea, and the natal vase, wherefrom its waters flow, 

Must be the funeral urn, wherein its ashes rest. 

5. AtTTUBIN IN TH« CA»AR[IES. 

Here be the only hills, here be the only vales 
Where Batcdius, at his full, and fair Pomona reign; 
The glory and delight of this divine domain 
Have never known the stress of Winter's wanton gaks. 
Grapes, mek)ns, peaches, figs, a crown that never fails 
Here fashion for that God who is to toping fain; 
And yonder noble palms, to victory germane. 
Bend under fruits whose sweet o'er honey's self prevails. 
The sugar-dropping canes, here not in marshes set, 
But on the rocky slopes, in bosky clusters jet 
Their tops' ambrosial gold toward the fostering sky; 
The orange buds and blooms and fruits in one day's sun 
And here, the whole year round, our ravished eyes espy 
The Summer and the Spring with Autunm all in one. 

4. WINTER IN tHte ALPS.' 

Yon particles of foe that gUttcr on the snow. 
Yon glimmering sparks of gold^ of crystal and of blue. 
Wherewith the sunlight dyes, in many an Orient hue, 
The Winter's tresses white, wind^-flutfiered to and fro, 
Yon ermine, that the hills to Heaiven's bountites owe, 
Yon smooth, pdindd floor of very algent new 
And this dear aiy and pure, uHto my sense and view 



244 SAINT'AMANT. 

So sweet aie that mine eyes thereat for laptore ^ow. 
This season pleaseth me; I love its wholesome cold; 
Its robes of candour pore and innocence enfold 
And coTer, in some sort, the crimes of this our earttu 
Wherefore with £iTOiiring eyes Jove looketh on this land: 
His anger spareth it, nor ever thunder-birth. 
To desdate its days, departed from his hand. 

5. THE SMOKER. 

Upon a fisiggot set, with pipe in hand and pot. 
Loins 'gainst a chinmey-back disconsolately leant, 
Soul in revolt and eyes to earth in sadness bent, 
I chew the cruel cud of my inhuman lot. 
Hope, till to-morrow's sun that, will I, will I not, 
Still puts me off, essays to temper my lament 
And promising me still my fortune's betterment. 
O'er th'emperor of Rome would raise me up, poor soL 
But scarcely is the weed to ashes burned away 
Than needs forthright I must my hi^ estate down-lay 
And all my old annoys pass over in my mind. 
Nay, when aU's weighed, in fine, I find but litde scope 
Of difference between tobaccoing and hope; 
The one is only smoke; the other is but wind, 

6. THE SLUGGAED. 

All overcome with sloth and spleen, in this my lair 
I dream upon my bed, where swaddle up I He, 
Like to a boneless hare, that coucheth in a pie, 
Or to Don Quixote in his madness and despair. 
There, heedless of the wars of Italy nor care 
Of the Count Palatine or his realm having, I 
A goodly hymn devote to that sweet sloth, whereby 
My soul in languor sooth is buried as it were. 
This pleasance, nay, I find so charming and so sweet, 
Methinks all goods will fsdl before my sleeping feet; 



SAINT'AMANT. 245 

By token that e'en now my belly wax I see 
And labour eke I hate, my Baldwin, on such wise 
That, with one ann the sheets without and half-shut eyes, 
I scarce can me constrain to pen these rhymes to thee. 



SONNETS ON THE MURDER OF 
CHARLES THE FIRST, KING OF ENGLAND. 

I. 

What is this frightful news thou bringest me to-day? 
Can this, indeed, be true thou tell'st me, stranger Fame? 
A king so good, so mild, so just in thought and aim, 
To see his every hope in vapour pass away 1 
A king to be condemned by those who should obey, 
His majesty to see enchained and put to shame 
By miscreants infamous, by dastards without name. 
Who nought but rancour armed for tribunal array ! 
A king unto the block thus from the throne to pass! 
So grim a road to fare, so stem a leap, alas ! 
'Tis of the strokes of Fate that overpass my wit. 
My sad confounded soul is sunken in amaze 
And all the reason thou canst render me for it 
Is that one cannot sound th'abysses of God's ways. 

2. (epitaph). 

See, princes, how august a victim here doth lie ! 
The afiront enormous mark offered to royalty ! 
In this unhallowed tomb great Charles beheaded see 
By one whose hands all right of royal rule deny ! 
All the world's crimes, in one assembled, might not vie, 
For very wickedness, with this impiety; 
And all the terms of blood, crime, horror, infamy. 
Are phrases over-mild and kind to name it by. 



246 SAINT-AMANT. 

Up, peoples, show yonr wrath ! Combine, ye potentates ! 
Fall on this wicked land, fall with your whole estates! 
Make peace on every hand, upon it to make war! 
Show quarter unto none; there is none innocent, 
There is no heart that's just in all the English shore; 
For those the crime commit who thereunto consent. 

3. (another epitaph.) 

Here lies the mangled corpse of an unhappy king, 
True martyr of the throne, bom in a raging time, 
Who of his prison made an honourable thing 
And with his noble blood the scaffold made sublime. 
This execrable deed, this grim, mysterious crime, 
Fairfax ^, a monster dire and dour, to pass did bring. 
Who would have said that such a head, in any clime, 
Should suffer aye from such a body sundering? 
Natheless, this hangman thief, to do his bloody mind. 
Veiling from vision what he had of humankind, 
This mighty king, with awe encompassed, massacred. 
And this flagitious deed more solemnly to seal, 
That head, three golden crowns which wore, that mighty head. 
Crowned with an infamous, a base and murderous steel 

1 Sic^ thoagh Cromwell would seem to be meant. It is possible, 
however, that contemporary rumour may have identified Fairfax 
with the masked assassin who carried out the judicial murder 
of Charles I. This, however, appears very improbable, as Fair&x 
notoriously repented, when too late, of his treasonable course, 
horrified at its natural consequences, and offered some opposition 
to the supreme crime in question, although without effect, except 
to draw upon himself the jealousy and suspicion of the Arch- 
Regicide and to bring about his own speedy retirement from publie 
life. His tardy repentance was further evidenced by the part he 
took in the restoration of Charles II. 



ALPHABETICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF 
POETS REPRESENTED IN THIS VOLUME. 



1. BaKf, Jean Antoine de 

2. Bellay, Joachim du 

3. Belleaa, Remy 

4. Bertaut, Jean, £v£que de S^e* 

5. Desportes, Philippe, AbW de Bonport . 

6. Dolet, fitienne 

7. Durant, Gilles, Seigneur de la Bei^erie. 

8. Jamyn, Amadis 

9. Jodelle, ^tienne. Seigneur du Lymodin . 

10. Magny, Olivier de 

11. Passerat, Jean 

ifl. Komieu, Marie de 

13. Ronsard, Pierre de 

14. Saint- Amant,Marc»Antoine G6rard,Siettr de 

15. Tahureau, Jacques, Sieur de la Chevallerie 

16. Taille, Jean de la. Seigneur de Bondaroy 

17. Tours, Guy de 

18. Tyard, Pontus de. Seigneur de Bissy, 

]£y£que et Comte de Chalons-sur-Saone 

19. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean, Sieur 

des Yveteaux 

20. Viau, Th6ophile de 



born 


died 


p. 


1532 


1589 


113 


1524 


1560 


43 


1528 


1577 


63 


1552 


16II 


20R 


1545 


1606 


"5 


1509 


1546 


193 


1550 


1615 


193 


1530 


1585 


95 


1532 


1573 


125 


1528 


1560 


81 


1534 


1602 


133 


1550 


1600? 


199 


1524 


1585 


17 


1594 


1661 


237 


1527 


1555 


59 


1540 


1608 


152 


1560 


I612 


219 


I5II 


1603 


9 


1536 


1606 


147 


1590 


1626 


229 



Mr. PAYNE'S WORKS. 

ORIGINAL POEMS. 

1. The Masqne of Shadows and other Poems 1870. 

2. Intaglios: Sonnets 1871. 

3. Songs of Life and Death 1872. 

4. Lautrec: a Poem 1878. 

5. New Poems 1880. 

(N.B. The above are oat of print; bat their contents 
are included in N°. 6), 

6. Collected Poems. 2 Vols 1902. 

7. Vigil and Vision. New Sonnets 1903. 

8. Songs of Consolation 1904. 

9. Hamid the Lackless and other Tales in Verse . . . 1904. 
to. Poems of Youth. (1862 — 1867). In the Press. 

11. Days and Nights. A Song-Sequence. In the Press. 

12. Songs or the Morrow. In the Press. 

TRANSLATIONS. 

1. The Poems of Francois Villon 1878. 

2. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. / ^ 

Nine Vols 1882 — 4. 

3. Tales from the Arabic. Three Vols 1884. 

4. Alaeddin and Zein ul Asnam 1885. 

5. The Decameron of Boccaccio. Three Vols , . . . . 1886, 

6. The Novels of Matteo Bandello. Six Vols 1890, 

7. The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam. 1898. 

8. The Poems of Hafiz. Three Vols X901 

9. Flowers of France. The Romantic Period. Two Vols . 1906, 
10. Flowers of France: The Renaissance Period: One Vol. 1907, 
XI. Flowers of France: The Beginnings: Xllth to XVth 

Centuries. ChAtelain de Coucy to Mellin de St. Gelais. 
(In preparation.) 

12. Flowers of France : The Dark Ages : XVIIth and XVIlIth 

Centuries: Malherbe to Andr6 Chenier. (In preparation.) 

13. Flowers of France: The Decadence: XlXth and XXth 

Centuries : Copp6e to Rivoire. Completing the Work. 
(In preparation). 

Prospectuses and particulars of the Villon Society^s issues 
can be obtained of the Hon. Secretary, Alfred Forman, Esq. 
49 Comeragh Road, West Kensington, W., to whom all commu- 
nications should be addressed. 



'0/