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Bethink ye, now ye hold your heavenly place.

TO HIS YOUNG MISTRESS.
RONSARD, 1550.

FAIR flower of fifteen springs, that still
Art scarcely blossomed from the bud,

Yet hast such store of evil will,
A heart so full of hardihood,

Seeking to hide in friendly wise
The mischief of your mocking eyes.

If you have pity, child, give o'er;
Give back the heart you stole from me,

Pirate, setting so little store
On this your captive from Love's sea,

Holding his misery for gain,
And making pleasure of his pain.

Another, not so fair of face,
But far more pitiful than you,

Would take my heart, if of his grace,
My heart would give her of Love's due;

And she shall have it, since I find
That you are cruel and unkind.

Nay, I would rather that it died,
Within your white hands prisoning,

Would rather that it still abide
In your ungentle comforting.

Than change its faith, and seek to her
That is more kind, but not so fair.

DEADLY KISSES.
RONSARD, 1550.

All take these lips away; no more,
No more such kisses give to me.

My spirit faints for joy; I see
Through mists of death the dreamy shore,

And meadows by the water-side,
Where all about the Hollow Land

Fare the sweet singers that have died,
With their lost ladies, hand in hand;

Ah, Love, how fireless are their eyes,
How pale their lips that kiss and smile!

So mine must be in little while
If thou wilt kiss me in such wise.

OF HIS LADY'S OLD AGE.
RONSARD, 1550

WHEN you are very old, at evening
You'll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,

Humming my songs, 'Ah well, ah well-a-day!
When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.'

None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,
Albeit with her weary task foredone,

But wakens at my name, and calls you one
Blest, to be held in long remembering.

I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid
On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,

While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,
My love, your pride, remember and regret;

Ah, love me, love! we may be happy yet,
And gather roses, while 'tis called to-day.

ON HIS LADY'S WAKING.
RONSARD, 1550

MY lady woke upon a morning fair,
What time Apollo's chariot takes the skies,

And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes
His empty quiver, Love was standing there:

I saw two apples that her breast doth bear
None such the close of the Hesperides

Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these,
Nor she that had of nursling Mars the care.

Even such a bosom, and so fair it was,
Pure as the perfect work of Phidias,

That sad Andromeda's discomfiture
Left bare, when Perseus passed her on a day,

And pale as Death for fear of Death she lay,
With breast as marble cold, as marble pure.

HIS LADY'S DEATH.
RONSARD, 1550.

TWAIN that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled;
One laurel-crowned abides in heaven, and one

Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen sun,
A light of love among the loveless dead.

The first is Chastity, that vanquished
The archer Love, that held joint empery

With the sweet beauty that made war on me,
When laughter of lips with laughing eyes was wed.

Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control,
The earth holds her fair body, and her soul

An angel with glad angels triumpheth;
Love has no more that he can do; desire

Is buried, and my heart a faded fire,
And for Death's sake, I am in love with Death.

LADY'S TOMB.
RONSARD, 1550.

AS in the gardens, all through May, the rose,
Lovely, and young, and fair apparelled,

Makes sunrisejealous of her rosy red,
When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;

Graces and Loves within her breast repose,
The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed,

Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead
The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose, -

So this, the perfect beauty of our days,
When earth and heaven were vocal of her praise,

The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes;
And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb

Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,
That dead, as living, she may be with roses.

SHADOWS OF HIS LADY.
JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.

WITHIN the sand of what far river lies
The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love?

What highest circle of the Heavens above
Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?

And where is the rich sea whose coral vies
With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?

What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof
The fled soul lives in her cheeks' rosy guise?

What Parian marble that is loveliest,
Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast?

When drew she breath from the Sabaean glade?
Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea,

Gardens, and glades Sabaean, all that be
The far-off splendid semblance of my maid!

MOONLIGHT.
JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.

THE high Midnight was garlanding her head
With many a shining star in shining skies,

And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes,
And, after sorrow, quietness was shed.

Far in dim fields cicalas jargoned
A thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries;

And all the woods were pallid, in strange wise,
With pallor of the sad moon overspread.

Then came my lady to that lonely place,
And, from her palfrey stooping, did embrace

And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;
Wherefore the day is far less dear than night,

And sweeter is the shadow than the light,
Since night has made me such a happy lover.

LOVE IN MAY.
PASSERAT, 1580.

OFF with sleep, love, up from bed,
This fair morn;

See, for our eyes the rosy red
New dawn is born;

Now that skies are glad and gay
In this gracious month of May,

Love me, sweet,
Fill my joy in brimming measure,

In this world he hath no pleasure,
That will none of it.

Come, love, through the woods of spring,
Come walk with me;

Listen, the sweet birds jargoning
From tree to tree.

List and listen, over all
Nightingale most musical

That ceases never;
Grief begone, and let us be

For a space as glad as he;
Time's flitting ever.

Old Time, that loves not lovers, wears
Wings swift in flight;

All our happy life he bears
Far in the night.

Old and wrinkled on a day,
Sad and weary shall you say,

'Ah, fool was I,
That took no pleasure in the grace

Of the flower that from my face
Time has seen die.'

Leave then sorrow, teen, and tears
Till we be old;

Young we are, and of our years
Till youth be cold

Pluck the flower; while spring is gay
In this happy month of May,

Love me, love;
Fill our joy in brimming measure;

In this world he hath no pleasure
That will none thereof.

THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE.
VICTOR HUGO.

THE Grave said to the Rose,
'What of the dews of dawn,

Love's flower, what end is theirs?'
'And what of spirits flown,

The souls whereon doth close
The tomb's mouth unawares?'

The Rose said to the Grave.
The Rose said, 'In the shade

From the dawn's tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,

Amber and honey sweet.'
'And all the spirits fleet

Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,

To God's own angels new,'
The Grave said to the Rose.

THE GENESIS OF BUTTERFLIES.
VICTOR HUGO.

THE dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers



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