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diff --git a/old/blpof10h.htm b/old/blpof10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8da6bdf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/blpof10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1981 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems, by Andrew Lang</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ballads and Lyrics of Old France +by Andrew Lang +(#6 in our series by Andrew Lang) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: January, 1997 [EBook #795] +[This file was first posted on January 31, 1997] +[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1872 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE: WITH OTHER POEMS</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Translations</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LIST OF POETS TRANSLATED</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I. CHARLES D’ORLEANS, who has sometimes, for no very +obvious reason, been styled the father of French lyric poetry, was born +in May, 1391. He was the son of Louis D’Orleans, the grandson +of Charles V., and the father of Louis XII. Captured at Agincourt, +he was kept in England as a prisoner from 1415 to 1440, when he returned +to France, where he died in 1465. His verses, for the most part +roundels on two rhymes, are songs of love and spring, and retain the +allegorical forms of the Roman de la Rose.</p> +<p>II. FRANÇOIS VILLON, 1431-14-? Nothing is known +of Villon’s birth or death, and only too much of his life. +In his poems the ancient forms of French verse are animated with the +keenest sense of personal emotion, of love, of melancholy, of mocking +despair, and of repentance for a life passed in taverns and prisons.</p> +<p>III. JOACHIM DU BELLAY, 1525-1560. The exact date of +Du Bellay’s birth is unknown. He was certainly a little +younger than Ronsard, who was born in September, 1524, although an attempt +has been made to prove that his birth took place in 1525, as a compensation +from Nature to France for the battle of Pavia. As a poet Du Bellay +had the start, by a few mouths, of Ronsard; his <i>Recueil</i> was published +in 1549. The question of priority in the new style of poetry caused +a quarrel, which did not long separate the two singers. Du Bellay +is perhaps the most interesting of the Pleiad, that company of Seven, +who attempted to reform French verse, by inspiring it with the enthusiasm +of the Renaissance. His book <i>L’Illustration de la langue +Française</i> is a plea for the study of ancient models and for +the improvement of the vernacular. In this effort Du Bellay and +Ronsard are the predecessors of Malherbe, and of André Chénier, +more successful through their frank eagerness than the former, less +fortunate in the possession of critical learning and appreciative taste +than the latter. There is something in Du Bellay’s life, +in the artistic nature checked by occupation in affairs - he was the +secretary of Cardinal Du Bellay - in the regret and affection with which +Rome depressed and allured him, which reminds the English reader of +the thwarted career of Clough.</p> +<p>IV. REMY BELLEAU, 1528-1577. Du Belleau’s life +was spent in the household of Charles de Lorraine, Marquis d’Elboeuf, +and was marked by nothing more eventful than the usual pilgrimage to +Italy, the sacred land and sepulchre of art.</p> +<p>V. PIERRE RONSARD, 1524-1585. Ronsard’s early years +gave little sign of his vocation. He was for some time a page +of the court, was in the service of James V. of Scotland, and had his +share of shipwrecks, battles, and amorous adventures. An illness +which produced total deafness made him a scholar and poet, as in another +age and country it might have made him a saint and an ascetic. +With all his industry, and almost religious zeal for art, he is one +of the poets who make themselves, rather than are born singers. +His epic, the Franciade, is as tedious as other artificial epics, and +his odes are almost unreadable. We are never allowed to forget +that he is the poet who read the Iliad through in three days. +He is, as has been said of Le Brun, more mythological than Pindar. +His constant allusion to his grey hair, an affectation which may be +noticed in Shelley, is borrowed from Anacreon. Many of the sonnets +in which he ‘petrarquizes,’ retain the faded odour of the +roses he loved; and his songs have fire and melancholy and a sense as +of perfume from ‘a closet long to quiet vowed, with mothed and +dropping arras hung.’ Ronsard’s great fame declined +when is Malherbe came to ‘bind the sweet influences of the Pleiad,’ +but he has been duly honoured by the newest school of French poetry.</p> +<p>VI. JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555. The amorous poetry of +Jacques Tahureau has the merit, rare in his, or in any age, of being +the real expression of passion. His brief life burned itself away +before he had exhausted the lyric effusion of his youth. ‘Le +plus beau gentilhomme de son siècle, et le plus dextre à +toutes sortes de gentillesses,’ died at the age of twenty-eight, +fulfilling the presentiment which tinges, but scarcely saddens his poetry.</p> +<p>VII. JEAN PASSERAT, 1534-1602. Better known as a political +satirist than as a poet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>POETS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>VICTOR HUGO.<br />ALFRED DE MUSSET, 1810-1857.<br />GÉRARD +DE NERVAL, 1801-1855.<br />HENRI MURGER, 1822-1861.</p> +<p>BALLADS.</p> +<p>The originals of the French folk-songs here translated are to be +found in the collections of MM. De Puymaigre and Gerard de Nerval, and +in the report of M. Ampère.</p> +<p>The verses called a ‘Lady of High Degree’ are imitated +from a very early <i>chanson</i> in Bartsch’s collection.</p> +<p>The Greek ballads have been translated with the aid of the French +versions by M. Fauriel.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>SPRING.<br />CHARLES D’ORLEANS, 1391-1465.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The new-liveried year. - <i>Sir Henry Wotton</i>.]</p> +<p>The year has changed his mantle cold<br />Of wind, of rain, of bitter +air;<br />And he goes clad in cloth of gold,<br />Of laughing suns and +season fair;<br />No bird or beast of wood or wold<br />But doth with +cry or song declare<br />The year lays down his mantle cold.<br />All +founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,<br />The pleasant summer livery +wear,<br />With silver studs on broidered vair;<br />The world puts +off its raiment old,<br />The year lays down his mantle cold.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>RONDEL.<br />CHARLES D’ORLEANS, 1391-1465.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[To his Mistress, to succour his heart that is beleaguered by jealousy.]</p> +<p>Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart,<br />And with some +store of pleasure give me aid,<br />For Jealousy, with all them of his +part,<br />Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.<br />Nay, if +to break his bands thou art afraid,<br />Too weak to make his cruel +force depart,<br />Strengthen at least this castle of my heart,<br />And +with some store of pleasure give me aid.<br />Nay, let not Jealousy, +for all his art<br />Be master, and the tower in ruin laid,<br />That +still, ah Love! thy gracious rule obeyed.<br />Advance, and give me +succour of thy part;<br />Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>RONDEL.<br />FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Goodbye! the tears are in my eyes;<br />Farewell, farewell, my prettiest;<br />Farewell, +of women born the best;<br />Good-bye! the saddest of good-byes.<br />Farewell! +with many vows and sighs<br />My sad heart leaves you to your rest;<br />Farewell! +the tears are in my eyes;<br />Farewell! from you my miseries<br />Are +more than now may be confessed,<br />And most by thee have I been blessed,<br />Yea, +and for thee have wasted sighs;<br />Goodbye! the last of my goodbyes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>ARBOR AMORIS.<br />FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I have a tree, a graft of Love,<br />That in my heart has taken root;<br />Sad +are the buds and blooms thereof,<br />And bitter sorrow is its fruit;<br />Yet, +since it was a tender shoot,<br />So greatly hath its shadow spread,<br />That +underneath all joy is dead,<br />And all my pleasant days are flown,<br />Nor +can I slay it, nor instead<br />Plant any tree, save this alone.</p> +<p>Ah, yet, for long and long enough<br />My tears were rain about its +root,<br />And though the fruit be harsh thereof,<br />I scarcely looked +for better fruit<br />Than this, that carefully I put<br />In garner, +for the bitter bread<br />Whereon my weary life is fed:<br />Ah, better +were the soil unsown<br />That bears such growths; but Love instead<br />Will +plant no tree, but this alone.</p> +<p>Ah, would that this new spring, whereof<br />The leaves and flowers +flush into shoot,<br />I might have succour and aid of Love,<br />To +prune these branches at the root,<br />That long have borne such bitter +fruit,<br />And graft a new bough, comforted<br />With happy blossoms +white and red;<br />So pleasure should for pain atone,<br />Nor Love +slay this tree, nor instead<br />Plant any tree, but this alone.</p> +<p>L’ENVOY.</p> +<p>Princess, by whom my hope is fed,<br />My heart thee prays in lowlihead<br />To +prune the ill boughs overgrown,<br />Nor slay Love’s tree, nor +plant instead<br />Another tree, save this alone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>BALLAD OF THE GIBBET.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[An epitaph in the form of a ballad that François Villon wrote +of himself and his company, they expecting shortly to be hanged.]</p> +<p>Brothers and men that shall after us be,<br />Let not your hearts +be hard to us:<br />For pitying this our misery<br />Ye shall find God +the more piteous.<br />Look on us six that are hanging thus,<br />And +for the flesh that so much we cherished<br />How it is eaten of birds +and perished,<br />And ashes and dust fill our bones’ place,<br />Mock +not at us that so feeble be,<br />But pray God pardon us out of His +grace.</p> +<p>Listen, we pray you, and look not in scorn,<br />Though justly, in +sooth, we are cast to die;<br />Ye wot no man so wise is born<br />That +keeps his wisdom constantly.<br />Be ye then merciful, and cry<br />To +Mary’s Son that is piteous,<br />That His mercy take no stain +from us,<br />Saving us out of the fiery place.<br />We are but dead, +let no soul deny<br />To pray God succour us of His grace.</p> +<p>The rain out of heaven has washed us clean,<br />The sun has scorched +us black and bare,<br />Ravens and rooks have pecked at our eyne,<br />And +feathered their nests with our beards and hair.<br />Round are we tossed, +and here and there,<br />This way and that, at the wild wind’s +will,<br />Never a moment my body is still;<br />Birds they are busy +about my face.<br />Live not as we, nor fare as we fare;<br />Pray God +pardon us out of His grace.</p> +<p>L’ENVOY.</p> +<p>Prince Jesus, Master of all, to thee<br />We pray Hell gain no mastery,<br />That +we come never anear that place;<br />And ye men, make no mockery,<br />Pray +God pardon us out of His grace.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>HYMN TO THE WINDS.<br />DU BELLAY, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[The winds are invoked by the winnowers of corn.]</p> +<p>To you, troop so fleet,<br />That with winged wandering feet,<br />Through +the wide world pass,<br />And with soft murmuring<br />Toss the green +shades of spring<br />In woods and grass,<br />Lily and violet<br />I +give, and blossoms wet,<br />Roses and dew;<br />This branch of blushing +roses,<br />Whose fresh bud uncloses,<br />Wind-flowers too.<br />Ah, +winnow with sweet breath,<br />Winnow the holt and heath,<br />Round +this retreat;<br />Where all the golden morn<br />We fan the gold o’ +the corn,<br />In the sun’s heat.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A VOW TO HEAVENLY VENUS.<br />DU BELLAY, 1500</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,<br />New wedded in +the village by thy fane,<br />Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is<br />We +bring these amaranths, these white lilies,<br />A sign, and sacrifice; +may Love, we pray,<br />Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;<br />Like +these cool lilies may our loves remain,<br />Perfect and pure, and know +not any stain;<br />And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,<br />Bound +each to each, like flower to wedded flower.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TO HIS FRIEND IN ELYSIUM.<br />DU BELLAY, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>So long you wandered on the dusky plain,<br />Where flit the shadows +with their endless cry,<br />You reach the shore where all the world +goes by,<br />You leave the strife, the slavery, the pain;<br />But +we, but we, the mortals that remain<br />In vain stretch hands; for +Charon sullenly<br />Drives us afar, we may not come anigh<br />Till +that last mystic obolus we gain.</p> +<p>But you are happy in the quiet place,<br />And with the learned lovers +of old days,<br />And with your love, you wander ever-more<br />In the +dim woods, and drink forgetfulness<br />Of us your friends, a weary +crowd that press<br />About the gate, or labour at the oar.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A SONNET TO HEAVENLY BEAUTY.<br />DU BELLAY, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>If this our little life is but a day<br />In the Eternal, - if the +years in vain<br />Toil after hours that never come again, -<br />If +everything that hath been must decay,<br />Why dreamest thou of joys +that pass away,<br />My soul, that my sad body doth restrain?<br />Why +of the moment’s pleasure art thou fain?<br />Nay, thou hast wings, +- nay, seek another stay.</p> +<p>There is the joy whereto each soul aspires,<br />And there the rest +that all the world desires,<br />And there is love, and peace, and gracious +mirth;<br />And there in the most highest heavens shalt thou<br />Behold +the Very Beauty, whereof now<br />Thou worshippest the shadow upon earth.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>APRIL.<br />REMY BELLEAU, 1560.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>April, pride of woodland ways,<br />Of glad days,<br />April, bringing +hope of prime,<br />To the young flowers that beneath<br />Their bud +sheath<br />Are guarded in their tender time;</p> +<p>April, pride of fields that be<br />Green and free,<br />That in +fashion glad and gay,<br />Stud with flowers red and blue,<br />Every +hue,<br />Their jewelled spring array;</p> +<p>April, pride of murmuring<br />Winds of spring,<br />That beneath +the winnowed air,<br />Trap with subtle nets and sweet<br />Flora’s +feet,<br />Flora’s feet, the fleet and fair;</p> +<p>April, by thy hand caressed,<br />From her breast<br />Nature scatters +everywhere<br />Handfuls of all sweet perfumes,<br />Buds and blooms,<br />Making +faint the earth and air.</p> +<p>April, joy of the green hours,<br />Clothes with flowers<br />Over +all her locks of gold<br />My sweet Lady; and her breast<br />With the +blest<br />Birds of summer manifold.</p> +<p>April, with thy gracious wiles,<br />Like the smiles,<br />Smiles +of Venus; and thy breath<br />Like her breath, the Gods’ delight,<br />(From +their height<br />They take the happy air beneath;)</p> +<p>It is thou that, of thy grace,<br />From their place<br />In the +far-oft isles dost bring<br />Swallows over earth and sea,<br />Glad +to be<br />Messengers of thee, and Spring.</p> +<p>Daffodil and eglantine,<br />And woodbine,<br />Lily, violet, and +rose<br />Plentiful in April fair,<br />To the air,<br />Their pretty +petals do unclose.</p> +<p>Nightingales ye now may hear,<br />Piercing clear,<br />Singing in +the deepest shade;<br />Many and many a babbled note<br />Chime and +float,<br />Woodland music through the glade.</p> +<p>April, all to welcome thee,<br />Spring sets free<br />Ancient flames, +and with low breath<br />Wakes the ashes grey and old<br />That the +cold<br />Chilled within our hearts to death.</p> +<p>Thou beholdest in the warm<br />Hours, the swarm<br />Of the thievish +bees, that flies<br />Evermore from bloom to bloom<br />For perfume,<br />Hid +away in tiny thighs.</p> +<p>Her cool shadows May can boast,<br />Fruits almost<br />Ripe, and +gifts of fertile dew,<br />Manna-sweet and honey-sweet,<br />That complete<br />Her +flower garland fresh and new.</p> +<p>Nay, but I will give my praise,<br />To these days,<br />Named with +the glad name of Her <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a><br />That +from out the foam o’ the sea<br />Came to be<br />Sudden light +on earth and air.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>ROSES.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I send you here a wreath of blossoms blown,<br />And woven flowers +at sunset gathered,<br />Another dawn had seen them ruined, and shed<br />Loose +leaves upon the grass at random strown.<br />By this, their sure example, +be it known,<br />That all your beauties, now in perfect flower,<br />Shall +fade as these, and wither in an hour,<br />Flowerlike, and brief of +days, as the flower sown.</p> +<p>Ah, time is flying, lady - time is flying;<br />Nay, ’tis not +time that flies but we that go,<br />Who in short space shall be in +churchyard lying,<br />And of our loving parley none shall know,<br />Nor +any man consider what we were;<br />Be therefore kind, my love, whiles +thou art fair.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE ROSE.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>See, Mignonne, hath not the Rose,<br />That this morning did unclose<br />Her +purple mantle to the light,<br />Lost, before the day be dead,<br />The +glory of her raiment red,<br />Her colour, bright as yours is bright?</p> +<p>Ah, Mignonne, in how few hours,<br />The petals of her purple flowers<br />All +have faded, fallen, died;<br />Sad Nature, mother ruinous,<br />That +seest thy fair child perish thus<br />‘Twixt matin song and even +tide.</p> +<p>Hear me, my darling, speaking sooth,<br />Gather the fleet flower +of your youth,<br />Take ye your pleasure at the best;<br />Be merry +ere your beauty flit,<br />For length of days will tarnish it<br />Like +roses that were loveliest.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TO THE MOON.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Hide this one night thy crescent, kindly Moon;<br />So shall Endymion +faithful prove, and rest<br />Loving and unawakened on thy breast;<br />So +shall no foul enchanter importune<br />Thy quiet course; for now the +night is boon,<br />And through the friendly night unseen I fare,<br />Who +dread the face of foemen unaware,<br />And watch of hostile spies in +the bright noon.<br />Thou knowest, Moon, the bitter power of Love;<br />’Tis +told how shepherd Pan found ways to move,<br />For little price, thy +heart; and of your grace,<br />Sweet stars, be kind to this not alien +fire,<br />Because on earth ye did not scorn desire,<br />Bethink ye, +now ye hold your heavenly place.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TO HIS YOUNG MISTRESS.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Fair flower of fifteen springs, that still<br />Art scarcely blossomed +from the bud,<br />Yet hast such store of evil will,<br />A heart so +full of hardihood,<br />Seeking to hide in friendly wise<br />The mischief +of your mocking eyes.</p> +<p>If you have pity, child, give o’er;<br />Give back the heart +you stole from me,<br />Pirate, setting so little store<br />On this +your captive from Love’s sea,<br />Holding his misery for gain,<br />And +making pleasure of his pain.</p> +<p>Another, not so fair of face,<br />But far more pitiful than you,<br />Would +take my heart, if of his grace,<br />My heart would give her of Love’s +due;<br />And she shall have it, since I find<br />That you are cruel +and unkind.</p> +<p>Nay, I would rather that it died,<br />Within your white hands prisoning,<br />Would +rather that it still abide<br />In your ungentle comforting.<br />Than +change its faith, and seek to her<br />That is more kind, but not so +fair.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>DEADLY KISSES.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>All take these lips away; no more,<br />No more such kisses give +to me.<br />My spirit faints for joy; I see<br />Through mists of death +the dreamy shore,<br />And meadows by the water-side,<br />Where all +about the Hollow Land<br />Fare the sweet singers that have died,<br />With +their lost ladies, hand in hand;<br />Ah, Love, how fireless are their +eyes,<br />How pale their lips that kiss and smile!<br />So mine must +be in little while<br />If thou wilt kiss me in such wise.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>OF HIS LADY’S OLD AGE.<br />RONSARD, 1550</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>When you are very old, at evening<br />You’ll sit and spin +beside the fire, and say,<br />Humming my songs, ‘Ah well, ah +well-a-day!<br />When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.’<br />None +of your maidens that doth hear the thing,<br />Albeit with her weary +task foredone,<br />But wakens at my name, and calls you one<br />Blest, +to be held in long remembering.</p> +<p>I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid<br />On sleep, a phantom +in the myrtle shade,<br />While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,<br />My +love, your pride, remember and regret;<br />Ah, love me, love! we may +be happy yet,<br />And gather roses, while ’tis called to-day.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>ON HIS LADY’S WAKING.<br />RONSARD, 1550</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>My lady woke upon a morning fair,<br />What time Apollo’s chariot +takes the skies,<br />And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes<br />His +empty quiver, Love was standing there:<br />I saw two apples that her +breast doth bear<br />None such the close of the Hesperides<br />Yields; +nor hath Venus any such as these,<br />Nor she that had of nursling +Mars the care.</p> +<p>Even such a bosom, and so fair it was,<br />Pure as the perfect work +of Phidias,<br />That sad Andromeda’s discomfiture<br />Left bare, +when Perseus passed her on a day,<br />And pale as Death for fear of +Death she lay,<br />With breast as marble cold, as marble pure.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>HIS LADY’S DEATH.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Twain that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled;<br />One laurel-crowned +abides in heaven, and one<br />Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen +sun,<br />A light of love among the loveless dead.<br />The first is +Chastity, that vanquished<br />The archer Love, that held joint empery<br />With +the sweet beauty that made war on me,<br />When laughter of lips with +laughing eyes was wed.</p> +<p>Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control,<br />The +earth holds her fair body, and her soul<br />An angel with glad angels +triumpheth;<br />Love has no more that he can do; desire<br />Is buried, +and my heart a faded fire,<br />And for Death’s sake, I am in +love with Death.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LADY’S TOMB.<br />RONSARD, 1550.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>As in the gardens, all through May, the rose,<br />Lovely, and young, +and fair apparelled,<br />Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,<br />When +dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;<br />Graces and Loves within her +breast repose,<br />The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed,<br />Till +rains and heavy suns have smitten dead<br />The languid flower, and +the loose leaves unclose, -</p> +<p>So this, the perfect beauty of our days,<br />When earth and heaven +were vocal of her praise,<br />The fates have slain, and her sweet soul +reposes;<br />And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb<br />Pour +milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,<br />That dead, as living, she +may be with roses.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>SHADOWS OF HIS LADY.<br />JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Within the sand of what far river lies<br />The gold that gleams +in tresses of my Love?<br />What highest circle of the Heavens above<br />Is +jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?<br />And where is the rich +sea whose coral vies<br />With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?<br />What +dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof<br />The fled soul lives in her +cheeks’ rosy guise?</p> +<p>What Parian marble that is loveliest,<br />Can match the whiteness +of her brow and breast?<br />When drew she breath from the Sabaean glade?<br />Oh +happy rock and river, sky and sea,<br />Gardens, and glades Sabaean, +all that be<br />The far-off splendid semblance of my maid!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>MOONLIGHT.<br />JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The high Midnight was garlanding her head<br />With many a shining +star in shining skies,<br />And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes,<br />And, +after sorrow, quietness was shed.<br />Far in dim fields cicalas jargonéd<br />A +thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries;<br />And all the woods +were pallid, in strange wise,<br />With pallor of the sad moon overspread.</p> +<p>Then came my lady to that lonely place,<br />And, from her palfrey +stooping, did embrace<br />And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;<br />Wherefore +the day is far less dear than night,<br />And sweeter is the shadow +than the light,<br />Since night has made me such a happy lover.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LOVE IN MAY.<br />PASSERAT, 1580.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Off with sleep, love, up from bed,<br />This fair morn;<br />See, +for our eyes the rosy red<br />New dawn is born;<br />Now that skies +are glad and gay<br />In this gracious month of May,<br />Love me, sweet,<br />Fill +my joy in brimming measure,<br />In this world he hath no pleasure,<br />That +will none of it.</p> +<p>Come, love, through the woods of spring,<br />Come walk with me;<br />Listen, +the sweet birds jargoning<br />From tree to tree.<br />List and listen, +over all<br />Nightingale most musical<br />That ceases never;<br />Grief +begone, and let us be<br />For a space as glad as he;<br />Time’s +flitting ever.</p> +<p>Old Time, that loves not lovers, wears<br />Wings swift in flight;<br />All +our happy life he bears<br />Far in the night.<br />Old and wrinkled +on a day,<br />Sad and weary shall you say,<br />‘Ah, fool was +I,<br />That took no pleasure in the grace<br />Of the flower that from +my face<br />Time has seen die.’</p> +<p>Leave then sorrow, teen, and tears<br />Till we be old;<br />Young +we are, and of our years<br />Till youth be cold<br />Pluck the flower; +while spring is gay<br />In this happy month of May,<br />Love me, love;<br />Fill +our joy in brimming measure;<br />In this world he hath no pleasure<br />That +will none thereof.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE.<br />VICTOR HUGO.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The Grave said to the Rose,<br />‘What of the dews of dawn,<br />Love’s +flower, what end is theirs?’<br />‘And what of spirits flown,<br />The +souls whereon doth close<br />The tomb’s mouth unawares?’<br />The +Rose said to the Grave.</p> +<p>The Rose said, ‘In the shade<br />From the dawn’s tears +is made<br />A perfume faint and strange,<br />Amber and honey sweet.’<br />‘And +all the spirits fleet<br />Do suffer a sky-change,<br />More strangely +than the dew,<br />To God’s own angels new,’<br />The Grave +said to the Rose.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE GENESIS OF BUTTERFLIES.<br />VICTOR HUGO.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers<br />The tearful roses; +lo, the little lovers<br />That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings<br />In +jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,<br />That go and come, and +fly, and peep and hide,<br />With muffled music, murmured far and wide!<br />Ah, +Spring time, when we think of all the lays<br />That dreamy lovers send +to dreamy mays,<br />Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,<br />Of +all the soft silk paper that pens wound,<br />The messages of love that +mortals write<br />Filled with intoxication of delight,<br />Written +in April, and before the May time<br />Shredded and flown, play things +for the wind’s play-time,<br />We dream that all white butterflies +above,<br />Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,<br />And +leave their lady mistress in despair,<br />To flit to flowers, as kinder +and more fair,<br />Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies<br />Flutter, +and float, and change to Butterflies.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>MORE STRONG THAN TIME.<br />VICTOR HUGO.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,<br />Since I +my pallid face between your hands have laid,<br />Since I have known +your soul, and all the bloom of it,<br />And all the perfume rare, now +buried in the shade;</p> +<p>Since it was given to me to hear one happy while,<br />The words +wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,<br />Since I have seen you +weep, and since I have seen you smile,<br />Your lips upon my lips, +and your eyes upon my eyes;</p> +<p>Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,<br />A ray, +a single ray, of your star, veiled always,<br />Since I have felt the +fall, upon my lifetime’s stream,<br />Of one rose petal plucked +from the roses of your days;</p> +<p>I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,<br />Pass, pass +upon your way, for I grow never old,<br />Fleet to the dark abysm with +all your fading flowers,<br />One rose that none may pluck, within my +heart I hold.</p> +<p>Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill<br />The cup +fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;<br />My heart has far +more fire than you have frost to chill,<br />My soul more love than +you can make my soul forget.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>AN OLD TUNE.<br />GERARD DE NERVAL.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There is an air for which I would disown<br />Mozart’s, Rossini’s, +Weber’s melodies, -<br />A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,<br />And +keeps its secret charm for me alone.</p> +<p>Whene’er I hear that music vague and old,<br />Two hundred +years are mist that rolls away;<br />The thirteenth Louis reigns, and +I behold<br />A green land golden in the dying day.</p> +<p>An old red castle, strong with stony towers,<br />The windows gay +with many coloured glass;<br />Wide plains, and rivers flowing among +flowers,<br />That bathe the castle basement as they pass.</p> +<p>In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,<br />A lady looks +forth from her window high;<br />It may be that I knew and found her +fair,<br />In some forgotten life, long time gone by.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>JUANA.<br />ALFRED DE MUSSET.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Again I see you, ah my queen,<br />Of all my old loves that have +been,<br />The first love, and the tenderest;<br />Do you remember or +forget -<br />Ah me, for I remember yet -<br />How the last summer days +were blest?</p> +<p>Ah lady, when we think of this,<br />The foolish hours of youth and +bliss,<br />How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold!<br />How old we +are, ere spring be green!<br />You touch the limit of eighteen<br />And +I am twenty winters old.</p> +<p>My rose, that mid the red roses,<br />Was brightest, ah, how pale +she is!<br />Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;<br />Child, never Spanish +lady’s face<br />Was lovely with so wild a grace;<br />Remember +the dead summer time.</p> +<p>Think of our loves, our feuds of old,<br />And how you gave your +chain of gold<br />To me for a peace offering;<br />And how all night +I lay awake<br />To touch and kiss it for your sake, -<br />To touch +and kiss the lifeless thing.</p> +<p>Lady, beware, for all we say,<br />This Love shall live another day,<br />Awakened +from his deathly sleep;<br />The heart that once has been your shrine<br />For +other loves is too divine;<br />A home, my dear, too wide and deep.</p> +<p>What did I say - why do I dream?<br />Why should I struggle with +the stream<br />Whose waves return not any day?<br />Close heart, and +eyes, and arms from me;<br />Farewell, farewell! so must it be,<br />So +runs, so runs, the world away,</p> +<p>The season bears upon its wing<br />The swallows and the songs of +spring,<br />And days that were, and days that flit;<br />The loved +lost hours are far away;<br />And hope and fame are scattered spray<br />For +me, that gave you love a day<br />For you that not remember it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>SPRING IN THE STUDENT’S QUARTER.<br />HENRI MURGER.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Winter is passing, and the bells<br />For ever with their silver +lay<br />Murmur a melody that tells<br />Of April and of Easter day.<br />High +in sweet air the light vane sets,<br />The weathercocks all southward +twirl;<br />A sou will buy her violets<br />And make Nini a happy girl.</p> +<p>The winter to the poor was sore,<br />Counting the weary winter days,<br />Watching +his little fire-wood store,<br />The bitter snow-flakes fell always;<br />And +now his last log dimly gleamed,<br />Lighting the room with feeble glare,<br />Half +cinder and half smoke it seemed<br />That the wind wafted into air.</p> +<p>Pilgrims from ocean and far isles<br />See where the east is reddening,<br />The +flocks that fly a thousand miles<br />From sunsetting to sunsetting;<br />Look +up, look out, behold the swallows,<br />The throats that twitter, the +wings that beat;<br />And on their song the summer follows,<br />And +in the summer life is sweet.</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>With the green tender buds that know<br />The shoot and sap of lusty +spring<br />My neighbour of a year ago<br />Her casement, see, is opening;<br />Through +all the bitter months that were,<br />Forth from her nest she dared +not flee,<br />She was a study for Boucher,<br />She now might sit to +Gavarni.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>OLD LOVES.<br />HENRI MURGER.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Louise, have you forgotten yet<br />The corner of the flowery land,<br />The +ancient garden where we met,<br />My hand that trembled in your hand?<br />Our +lips found words scarce sweet enough,<br />As low beneath the willow-trees<br />We +sat; have you forgotten, love?<br />Do you remember, love Louise?</p> +<p>Marie, have you forgotten yet<br />The loving barter that we made?<br />The +rings we changed, the suns that set,<br />The woods fulfilled with sun +and shade?<br />The fountains that were musical<br />By many an ancient +trysting tree -<br />Marie, have you forgotten all?<br />Do you remember, +love Marie?</p> +<p>Christine, do you remember yet<br />Your room with scents and roses +gay?<br />My garret - near the sky ’twas set -<br />The April +hours, the nights of May?<br />The clear calm nights - the stars above<br />That +whispered they were fairest seen<br />Through no cloud-veil? Remember, +love!<br />Do you remember, love Christine?</p> +<p>Louise is dead, and, well-a-day!<br />Marie a sadder path has ta’en;<br />And +pale Christine has passed away<br />In southern suns to bloom again.<br />Alas! +for one and all of us -<br />Marie, Louise, Christine forget;<br />Our +bower of love is ruinous,<br />And I alone remember yet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>MUSETTE.<br />HENRI MURGER. 1850</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Yesterday, watching the swallows’ flight<br />That bring the +spring and the season fair,<br />A moment I thought of the beauty bright<br />Who +loved me, when she had time to spare;<br />And dreamily, dreamily all +the day,<br />I mused on the calendar of the year,<br />The year so +near and so far away,<br />When you were lief, and when I was dear.</p> +<p>Your memory has not had time to pass;<br />My youth has days of its +lifetime yet;<br />If you only knocked at the door, alas,<br />My heart +would open the door, Musette!<br />Still at your name must my sad heart +beat;<br />Ah Muse, ah maiden of faithlessness!<br />Return for a moment, +and deign to eat<br />The bread that pleasure was wont to bless.</p> +<p>The tables and curtains, the chairs and all,<br />Friends of our +pleasure that looked on our pain,<br />Are glad with the gladness of +festival,<br />Hoping to see you at home again;<br />Come, let the days +of their mourning pass,<br />The silent friends that are sad for you +yet;<br />The little sofa, the great wine glass -<br />For know you +had often my share, Musette.</p> +<p>Come, you shall wear the raiment white<br />You wore of old, when +the world was gay,<br />We will wander in woods of the heart’s +delight<br />The whole of the Sunday holiday.<br />Come, we will sit +by the wayside inn,<br />Come, and your song will gain force to fly,<br />Dipping +its wing in the clear and thin<br />Wine, as of old, ere it scale the +sky.</p> +<p>Musette, who had scarcely forgotten withal<br />One beautiful dawn +of the new year’s best,<br />Returned at the end of the carnival,<br />A +flown bird, to a forsaken nest.<br />Ah faithless and fair! I +embrace her yet,<br />With no heart-beat, and with never a sigh;<br />And +Musette, no longer the old Musette,<br />Declares that I am no longer +I.</p> +<p>Farewell, my dear that was once so dear,<br />Dead with the death +of our latest love;<br />Our youth is laid in its sepulchre,<br />The +calendar stands for a stone above.<br />’Tis only in searching +the dust of the days,<br />The ashes of all old memories,<br />That +we find the key of the woodland ways<br />That lead to the place of +our paradise.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE THREE CAPTAINS.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>All beneath the white-rose tree<br />Walks a lady fair to see,<br />She +is as white as the snows,<br />She is as fair as the day:<br />From +her father’s garden close<br />Three knights have ta’en +her away.</p> +<p>He has ta’en her by the hand,<br />The youngest of the three +-<br />‘Mount and ride, my bonnie bride,<br />On my white horse +with me.’</p> +<p>And ever they rode, and better rode,<br />Till they came to Senlis +town,<br />The hostess she looked hard at them<br />As they were lighting +down.</p> +<p>‘And are ye here by force,’ she said,<br />‘Or +are ye here for play?<br />From out my father’s garden close<br />Three +knights me stole away.</p> +<p>‘And fain would I win back,’ she said,<br />‘The +weary way I come;<br />And fain would see my father dear,<br />And fain +go maiden home.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, weep not, lady fair,’ said she,<br />‘You +shall win back,’ she said,<br />‘For you shall take this +draught from me<br />Will make you lie for dead.’</p> +<p>‘Come in and sup, fair lady,’ they said,<br />‘Come +busk ye and be bright;<br />It is with three bold captains<br />That +ye must be this night.’</p> +<p>When they had eaten well and drunk,<br />She fell down like one slain:<br />‘Now, +out and alas! for my bonny may<br />Shall live no more again.’</p> +<p>‘Within her father’s garden stead<br />There are three +white lilies;<br />With her body to the lily bed,<br />With her soul +to Paradise.’</p> +<p>They bore her to her father’s house,<br />They bore her all +the three,<br />They laid her in her father’s close,<br />Beneath +the white-rose tree.</p> +<p>She had not lain a day, a day,<br />A day but barely three,<br />When +the may awakes, ‘Oh, open, father,<br />Oh, open the door for +me.</p> +<p>‘’Tis I have lain for dead, father,<br />Have lain the +long days three,<br />That I might maiden come again<br />To my mother +and to thee.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE BRIDGE OF DEATH.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>‘The dance is on the Bridge of Death<br />And who will dance +with me?’<br />‘There’s never a man of living men<br />Will +dare to dance with thee.’</p> +<p>Now Margaret’s gone within her bower<br />Put ashes in her +hair,<br />And sackcloth on her bonny breast,<br />And on her shoulders +bare.</p> +<p>There came a knock to her bower door,<br />And blithe she let him +in;<br />It was her brother from the wars,<br />The dearest of her kin.</p> +<p>‘Set gold within your hair, Margaret,<br />Set gold within +your hair,<br />And gold upon your girdle band,<br />And on your breast +so fair.</p> +<p>‘For we are bidden to dance to-night,<br />We may not bide +away;<br />This one good night, this one fair night,<br />Before the +red new day.’</p> +<p>‘Nay, no gold for my head brother,<br />Nay, no gold for my +hair;<br />It is the ashes and dust of earth<br />That you and I must +wear.</p> +<p>‘No gold work for my girdle band,<br />No gold work on my feet;<br />But +ashes of the fire, my love,<br />But dust that the serpents eat.’</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>They danced across the bridge of Death,<br />Above the black water,<br />And +the marriage-bell was tolled in hell<br />For the souls of him and her.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LE PÈRE SÉVÈRE.<br />KING LOUIS’ DAUGHTER.<br />BALLAD +OF THE ISLE OF FRANCE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>King Louis on his bridge is he,<br />He holds his daughter on his +knee.</p> +<p>She asks a husband at his hand<br />That is not worth a rood of land.</p> +<p>‘Give up your lover speedily,<br />Or you within the tower +must lie.’</p> +<p>‘Although I must the prison dree,<br />I will not change my +love for thee.</p> +<p>‘I will not change my lover fair<br />Not for the mother that +me bare.</p> +<p>‘I will not change my true lover<br />For friends, or for my +father dear.’</p> +<p>‘Now where are all my pages keen,<br />And where are all my +serving men?</p> +<p>‘My daughter must lie in the tower alway,<br />Where she shall +never see the day.’</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>Seven long years are past and gone<br />And there has seen her never +one.</p> +<p>At ending of the seventh year<br />Her father goes to visit her.</p> +<p>‘My child, my child, how may you be?’<br />‘O father, +it fares ill with me.</p> +<p>‘My feet are wasted in the mould,<br />The worms they gnaw +my side so cold.’</p> +<p>‘My child, change your love speedily<br />Or you must still +in prison lie.’</p> +<p>‘’Tis better far the cold to dree<br />Than give my true +love up for thee.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE MILK WHITE DOE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It was a mother and a maid<br />That walked the woods among,<br />And +still the maid went slow and sad,<br />And still the mother sung.</p> +<p>‘What ails you, daughter Margaret?<br />Why go you pale and +wan?<br />Is it for a cast of bitter love,<br />Or for a false leman?’</p> +<p>‘It is not for a false lover<br />That I go sad to see;<br />But +it is for a weary life<br />Beneath the greenwood tree.</p> +<p>‘For ever in the good daylight<br />A maiden may I go,<br />But +always on the ninth midnight<br />I change to a milk white doe.</p> +<p>‘They hunt me through the green forest<br />With hounds and +hunting men;<br />And ever it is my fair brother<br />That is so fierce +and keen.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>‘Good-morrow, mother.’ ‘Good-morrow, son;<br />Where +are your hounds so good?’<br />Oh, they are hunting a white doe<br />Within +the glad greenwood.</p> +<p>‘And three times have they hunted her,<br />And thrice she’s +won away;<br />The fourth time that they follow her<br />That white +doe they shall slay.’</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>Then out and spoke the forester,<br />As he came from the wood,<br />‘Now +never saw I maid’s gold hair<br />Among the wild deer’s +blood.</p> +<p>‘And I have hunted the wild deer<br />In east lands and in +west;<br />And never saw I white doe yet<br />That had a maiden’s +breast.’</p> +<p>Then up and spake her fair brother,<br />Between the wine and bread,<br />‘Behold, +I had but one sister,<br />And I have been her dead.’</p> +<p>‘But ye must bury my sweet sister<br />With a stone at her +foot and her head,<br />And ye must cover her fair body<br />With the +white roses and red.’</p> +<p>And I must out to the greenwood,<br />The roof shall never shelter +me;<br />And I shall lie for seven long years<br />On the grass below +the hawthorn tree.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A LADY OF HIGH DEGREE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[I be pareld most of prise,<br />I ride after the wild fee.]</p> +<p>Will ye that I should sing<br />Of the love of a goodly thing,<br />Was +no vilein’s may?<br />’Tis sung of a knight so free,<br />Under +the olive tree,<br />Singing this lay.</p> +<p>Her weed was of samite fine,<br />Her mantle of white ermine,<br />Green +silk her hose;<br />Her shoon with silver gay,<br />Her sandals flowers +of May,<br />Laced small and close.</p> +<p>Her belt was of fresh spring buds,<br />Set with gold clasps and +studs,<br />Fine linen her shift;<br />Her purse it was of love,<br />Her +chain was the flower thereof,<br />And Love’s gift.</p> +<p>Upon a mule she rode,<br />The selle was of brent gold,<br />The +bits of silver made;<br />Three red rose trees there were<br />That +overshadowed her,<br />For a sun shade.</p> +<p>She riding on a day,<br />Knights met her by the way,<br />They did +her grace;<br />‘Fair lady, whence be ye?’<br />‘France +it is my countrie,<br />I come of a high race.</p> +<p>‘My sire is the nightingale,<br />That sings, making his wail,<br />In +the wild wood, clear;<br />The mermaid is mother to me,<br />That sings +in the salt sea,<br />In the ocean mere.’</p> +<p>‘Ye come of a right good race,<br />And are born of a high +place,<br />And of high degree;<br />Would to God that ye were<br />Given +unto me, being fair,<br />My lady and love to be.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LOST FOR A ROSE’S SAKE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I laved my hands,<br />BY the water side;<br />With the willow leaves<br />My +hands I dried.</p> +<p>The nightingale sung<br />On the bough of the tree;<br />Sing, sweet +nightingale,<br />It is well with thee.</p> +<p>Thou hast heart’s delight,<br />I have sad heart’s sorrow<br />For +a false false maid<br />That will wed to-morrow.</p> +<p>’Tis all for a rose,<br />That I gave her not,<br />And I would +that it grew<br />In the garden plot.</p> +<p>And I would the rose-tree<br />Were still to set,<br />That my love +Marie<br />Might love me yet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>BALLADS OF MODERN GREECE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE BRIGAND’S GRAVE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The moon came up above the hill,<br />The sun went down the sea;<br />Go, +maids, and fetch the well-water,<br />But, lad, come here to me.</p> +<p>Gird on my jack and my old sword,<br />For I have never a son;<br />And +you must be the chief of all<br />When I am dead and gone.</p> +<p>But you must take my old broad sword,<br />And cut the green bough +of the tree,<br />And strew the green boughs on the ground<br />To make +a soft death bed for me.</p> +<p>And you must bring the holy priest<br />That I may sained be;<br />For +I have lived a roving life<br />Fifty years under the greenwood tree.</p> +<p>And you shall make a grave for me,<br />And make it deep and wide;<br />That +I may turn about and dream<br />With my old gun by my side.</p> +<p>And leave a window to the east,<br />And the swallows will bring +the spring;<br />And all the merry month of May<br />The nightingales +will sing.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE SUDDEN BRIDAL.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It was a maid lay sick of love,<br />All for a leman fair;<br />And +it was three of her bower-maidens<br />That came to comfort her.</p> +<p>The first she bore a blossomed branch,<br />The second an apple brown,<br />The +third she had a silk kerchief,<br />And still her tears ran down.</p> +<p>The first she mocked, the second she laughed -<br />‘We have +loved lemans fair,<br />We made our hearts like the iron stone<br />Had +little teen or care.’</p> +<p>‘If ye have loved ’twas a false false love,<br />And +an ill leman was he;<br />But her true love had angel’s eyes,<br />And +as fair was his sweet body.</p> +<p>And I will gird my green kirtle,<br />And braid my yellow hair,<br />And +I will over the high hills<br />And bring her love to her.’</p> +<p>‘Nay, if you braid your yellow hair,<br />You’ll twine +my love from me.’<br />‘Now nay, now nay, my lady good,<br />That +ever this should be!’</p> +<p>‘When you have crossed the western hills<br />My true love +you shall meet,<br />With a green flag blowing over him,<br />And green +grass at his feet.’</p> +<p>She has crossed over the high hills,<br />And the low hills between,<br />And +she has found the may’s leman<br />Beneath a flag of green.</p> +<p>’Twas four and twenty ladies fair<br />Were sitting on the +grass;<br />But he has turned and looked on her,<br />And will not let +her pass.</p> +<p>‘You’ve maidens here, and maidens there,<br />And loves +through all the land;<br />But what have you made of the lady fair<br />You +gave the rose-garland?’</p> +<p>She was so harsh and cold of love,<br />To me gave little grace;<br />She +wept if I but touched her hand,<br />Or kissed her bonny face.</p> +<p>‘Yea, crows shall build in the eagle’s nest,<br />The +hawk the dove shall wed,<br />Before my old true love and I<br />Meet +in one wedding bed.’</p> +<p>When she had heard his bitter rede<br />That was his old true love,<br />She +sat and wept within her bower,<br />And moaned even as a dove.</p> +<p>She rose up from her window seat,<br />And she looked out to see;<br />Her +love came riding up the street<br />With a goodly company.</p> +<p>He was clad on with Venice gold,<br />Wrought upon cramoisie,<br />His +yellow hair shone like the sun<br />About his fair body.</p> +<p>‘Now shall I call him blossomed branch<br />That has ill knots +therein?<br />Or shall I call him basil plant,<br />That comes of an +evil kin?</p> +<p>‘Oh, I shall give him goodly names,<br />My sword of damask +fine;<br />My silver flower, my bright-winged bird,<br />Where go you, +lover mine?’</p> +<p>‘I go to marry my new bride,<br />That I bring o’er the +down;<br />And you shall be her bridal maid,<br />And hold her bridal +crown.’</p> +<p>‘When you come to the bride chamber<br />Where your fair maiden +is,<br />You’ll tell her I was fair of face,<br />But never tell +her this,</p> +<p>‘That still my lips were lips of love,<br />My kiss love’s +spring-water,<br />That my love was a running spring,<br />My breast +a garden fair.</p> +<p>‘And you have kissed the lips of love<br />And drained the +well-water,<br />And you have spoiled the running spring,<br />And robbed +the fruits so fair.’</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>‘Now he that will may scatter nuts,<br />And he may wed that +will;<br />But she that was my old true love<br />Shall be my true love +still.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>GREEK FOLK SONGS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>IANNOULA.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>All the maidens were merry and wed<br />All to lovers so fair to +see;<br />The lover I took to my bridal bed<br />He is not long for +love and me.</p> +<p>I spoke to him and he noting said,<br />I gave him bread of the wheat +so fine,<br />He did not eat of the bridal bread,<br />He did not drink +of the bridal wine.</p> +<p>I made him a bed was soft and deep,<br />I made him a bed to sleep +with me;<br />‘Look on me once before you sleep,<br />And look +on the flower of my fair body.</p> +<p>‘Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew,<br />Dew of April and +buds of May;<br />Two white blossoms that bud for you,<br />Buds that +blossom before the day.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE TELL-TALES.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>All in the mirk midnight when I was beside you,<br />Who has seen, +who has heard, what was said, what was done?<br />’Twas the night +and the light of the stars that espied you,<br />The fall of the moon, +and the dawning begun.</p> +<p>’Tis a swift star has fallen, a star that discovers<br />To +the sea what the green sea has told to the oars,<br />And the oars to +the sailors, and they of us lovers<br />Go singing this song at their +mistress’s doors.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>AVE.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TWILIGHT ON TWEED.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Three crests against the saffron sky,<br />Beyond the purple plain,<br />The +dear remembered melody<br />Of Tweed once more again.</p> +<p>Wan water from the border hills,<br />Dear voice from the old years,<br />Thy +distant music lulls and stills,<br />And moves to quiet tears.</p> +<p>Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood<br />Fleets through the dusky +land;<br />Where Scott, come home to die, has stood,<br />My feet returning +stand.</p> +<p>A mist of memory broods and floats,<br />The border waters flow;<br />The +air is full of ballad notes,<br />Borne out of long ago.</p> +<p>Old songs that sung themselves to me,<br />Sweet through a boy’s +day dream,<br />While trout below the blossom’d tree<br />Plashed +in the golden stream.</p> +<p>* * * * * *</p> +<p>Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,<br />Fair and thrice fair you +be;<br />You tell me that the voice is still<br />That should have welcomed +me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>ONE FLOWER.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[“Up there shot a lily red,<br />With a patch of earth from +the land of the dead,<br />For she was strong in the land of the dead.”]</p> +<p>When autumn suns are soft, and sea winds moan,<br />And golden fruits +make sweet the golden air,<br />In gardens where the apple blossoms +were,<br />In these old springs before I walked alone;<br />I pass among +the pathways overgrown,<br />Of all the former flowers that kissed your +feet<br />Remains a poppy, pallid from the heat,<br />A wild poppy that +the wild winds have sown.<br />Alas! the rose forgets your hands of +rose;<br />The lilies slumber in the lily bed;<br />’Tis only +poppies in the dreamy close,<br />The changeless, windless garden of +the dead,<br />You tend, with buds soft as your kiss that lies<br />In +over happy dreams, upon mine eyes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>METEMPSYCHOSIS.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know<br />Perchance, thy grey +eyes in another’s eyes,<br />Shall guess thy curls in gracious +locks that flow<br />On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise<br />Shall +follow, and track, and find thee in disguise<br />Of all sad things, +and fair, where sunsets glow,<br />When through the scent of heather, +faint and low,<br />The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.</p> +<p>From all sweet art, and out of all ‘old rhyme,’<br />Thine +eyes and lips are light and song to me;<br />The shadows of the beauty +of all time,<br />Carven and sung, are only shapes of thee;<br />Alas, +the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear<br />Shall life or death bring +all thy being near?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LOST IN HADES.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place,<br />Grief of farewell +unspoken was forgot<br />In welcome, and regret remembered not;<br />And +hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise<br />On lips that had +been songless many days;<br />Hope had no more to hope for, and desire<br />And +dread were overpast, in white attire<br />New born we walked among the +new world’s ways.</p> +<p>Then from the press of shades a spirit threw<br />Towards me such +apples as these gardens bear;<br />And turning, I was ‘ware of +her, and knew<br />And followed her fleet voice and flying hair, -<br />Followed, +and found her not, and seeking you<br />I found you never, dearest, +anywhere.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A STAR IN THE NIGHT.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The perfect piteous beauty of thy face,<br />Is like a star the dawning +drives away;<br />Mine eyes may never see in the bright day<br />Thy +pallid halo, thy supernal grace:<br />But in the night from forth the +silent place<br />Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray<br />Star +of the starry flock that in the grey<br />Is seen, and lost, and seen +a moment’s space.</p> +<p>And as the earth at night turns to a star,<br />Loved long ago, and +dearer than the sun,<br />So in the spiritual place afar,<br />At night +our souls are mingled and made one,<br />And wait till one night fall, +and one dawn rise,<br />That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A SUNSET ON YARROW.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The wind and the day had lived together,<br />They died together, +and far away<br />Spoke farewell in the sultry weather,<br />Out of +the sunset, over the heather,<br />The dying wind and the dying day.</p> +<p>Far in the south, the summer levin<br />Flushed, a flame in the grey +soft air:<br />We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;<br />You saw +within, but to me ’twas given<br />To see your face, as an angel’s, +there.</p> +<p>Never again, ah surely never<br />Shall we wait and watch, where +of old we stood,<br />The low good-night of the hill and the river,<br />The +faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver,<br />Twain grown one in +the solitude.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>HESPEROTHEN.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned +from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking +they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian +island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably +in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the <i>Vanity of Melancholy</i>. +And by the land of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and +of fair Pleasures; and by Circe’s Isle, the places of bodily delights, +whereof men, falling aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that +age. Which thing Master Françoys Rabelais feigned, under +the similitude of the Isle of the Macraeones.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There is a land in the remotest day,<br />Where the soft night is +born, and sunset dies;<br />The eastern shores see faint tides fade +away,<br />That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,<br />Make +life, - the lands beneath the blue of common skies.</p> +<p>But in the west is a mysterious sea,<br />(What sails have seen it, +or what shipmen known?)<br />With coasts enchanted where the Sirens +be,<br />With islands where a Goddess walks alone,<br />And in the cedar +trees the magic winds make moan</p> +<p>Eastward the human cares of house and home,<br />Cities, and ships, +and unknown Gods, and loves;<br />Westward, strange maidens fairer than +the foam,<br />And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,<br />Wherein +a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.</p> +<p>The Gods are careless of the days and death<br />Of toilsome men, +beyond the western seas;<br />The Gods are heedless of their painful +breath,<br />And love them not, for they are not as these;<br />But +in the golden west they live and lie at ease.</p> +<p>Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live<br />At the light’s +limit, passing careless hours,<br />Most like the Gods; and they have +gifts to give,<br />Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,<br />And +song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.</p> +<p>It is a quiet midland; in the cool<br />Of twilight comes the God, +though no man prayed,<br />To watch the maids and young men beautiful<br />Dance, +and they see him, and are not afraid,<br />For they are near of kin +to Gods, and undismayed.</p> +<p>Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh<br />The dreamy +isles that the Immortals keep!<br />But with a mist they hide them wondrously,<br />And +far the path and dim to where they sleep, -<br />The loved, the shadowy +lands along the shadowy deep.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A SONG OF PHAEACIA.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The languid sunset, mother of roses,<br />Lingers, a light on the +magic seas,<br />The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses,<br />Heavy +with odour, and loose to the breeze.</p> +<p>The red rose clouds, without law or leader,<br />Gather and float +in the airy plain;<br />The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar,<br />The +cedar scatters his scent to the main.</p> +<p>The strange flowers’ perfume turns to singing,<br />Heard afar +over moonlit seas;<br />The Siren’s song, grown faint in winging,<br />Falls +in scent on the cedar trees.</p> +<p>As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying,<br />Purple, and rosy, +and grey, the birds<br />Brighten the air with their wings; their crying<br />Wakens +a moment the weary herds.</p> +<p>Butterflies flit from the fairy garden,<br />Living blossoms of flying +flowers;<br />Never the nights with winter harden,<br />Nor moons wax +keen in this land of ours.</p> +<p>Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden,<br />Gleam in the green, +and droop and fall;<br />Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden,<br />Swing, +and cling to the garden wall.</p> +<p>Deep in the woods as twilight darkens,<br />Glades are red with the +scented fire;<br />Far in the dells the white maid hearkens,<br />Song +and sigh of the heart’s desire.</p> +<p>Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning,<br />Maiden’s song in +the matin grey,<br />Faints as the first bird’s note, a warning,<br />Wakes +and wails to the new-born day.</p> +<p>The waking song and the dying measure<br />Meet, and the waxing and +waning light<br />Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure,<br />The +rose of the sea and the sky is white.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>THE PHAEACIANS.</p> +<p>Why from the dreamy meadows,<br />More fair than any dream,<br />Why +will you seek the shadows<br />Beyond the ocean stream?</p> +<p>Through straits of storm and peril,<br />Through firths unsailed +before,<br />Why make you for the sterile,<br />The dark Kimmerian shore?</p> +<p>There no bright streams are flowing,<br />There day and night are +one,<br />No harvest time, no sowing,<br />No sight of any sun;</p> +<p>No sound of song or tabor,<br />No dance shall greet you there;<br />No +noise of mortal labour,<br />Breaks on the blind chill air.</p> +<p>Are ours not happy places,<br />Where Gods with mortals trod?<br />Saw +not our sires the faces<br />Of many a present God?</p> +<p>THE SEEKERS.</p> +<p>Nay, now no God comes hither,<br />In shape that men may see;<br />They +fare we know not whither,<br />We know not what they be.</p> +<p>Yea, though the sunset lingers<br />Far in your fairy glades,<br />Though +yours the sweetest singers,<br />Though yours the kindest maids,</p> +<p>Yet here be the true shadows,<br />Here in the doubtful light;<br />Amid +the dreamy meadows<br />No shadow haunts the night.</p> +<p>We seek a city splendid,<br />With light beyond the sun;<br />Or +lands where dreams are ended,<br />And works and days are done.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a></h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Fair white bird, what song art thou singing<br />In wintry weather +of lands o’er sea?<br />Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,<br />Where +no grass grows, and no green tree?</p> +<p>I looked at the far off fields and grey,<br />There grew no tree +but the cypress tree,<br />That bears sad fruits with the flowers of +May,<br />And whoso looks on it, woe is he.</p> +<p>And whoso eats of the fruit thereof<br />Has no more sorrow, and +no more love;<br />And who sets the same in his garden stead,<br />In +a little space he is waste and dead.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The weary sails a moment slept,<br />The oars were silent for a space,<br />As +past Hesperian shores we swept,<br />That were as a remembered face<br />Seen +after lapse of hopeless years,<br />In Hades, when the shadows meet,<br />Dim +through the mist of many tears,<br />And strange, and though a shadow, +sweet.</p> +<p>So seemed the half-remembered shore,<br />That slumbered, mirrored +in the blue,<br />With havens where we touched of yore,<br />And ports +that over well we knew.<br />Then broke the calm before a breeze<br />That +sought the secret of the west;<br />And listless all we swept the seas<br />Towards +the Islands of the Blest.</p> +<p>Beside a golden sanded bay<br />We saw the Sirens, very fair<br />The +flowery hill whereon they lay,<br />The flowers set upon their hair.<br />Their +old sweet song came down the wind,<br />Remembered music waxing strong,<br />Ah +now no need of cords to bind,<br />No need had we of Orphic song.</p> +<p>It once had seemed a little thing,<br />To lay our lives down at +their feet,<br />That dying we might hear them sing,<br />And dying +see their faces sweet;<br />But now, we glanced, and passing by,<br />No +care had we to tarry long;<br />Faint hope, and rest, and memory<br />Were +more than any Siren’s song.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>CIRCE’S ISLE REVISITED.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Ah, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;<br />Ah, Circe, Circe! but +no voice replied;<br />No voice from bowers o’ergrown and ruinous<br />As +fallen rocks upon the mountain side.</p> +<p>There was no sound of singing in the air;<br />Failed or fled the +maidens that were fair,<br />No more for sorrow or joy were seen of +us,<br />No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.</p> +<p>The perfume, and the music, and the flame<br />Had passed away; the +memory of shame<br />Alone abode, and stings of faint desire,<br />And +pulses of vague quiet went and came.</p> +<p>Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place,<br />Our dead Youth came +and looked on us a space,<br />With drooping wings, and eyes of faded +fire,<br />And wasted hair about a weary face.</p> +<p>Why had we ever sought the magic isle<br />That seemed so happy in +the days erewhile?<br />Why did we ever leave it, where we met<br />A +world of happy wonders in one smile?</p> +<p>Back to the westward and the waning light<br />We turned, we fled; +the solitude of night<br />Was better than the infinite regret,<br />In +fallen places of our dead delight.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE LIMIT OF LANDS.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Between the circling ocean sea<br />And the poplars of Persephone<br />There +lies a strip of barren sand,<br />Flecked with the sea’s last +spray, and strown<br />With waste leaves of the poplars, blown<br />From +gardens of the shadow land.</p> +<p>With altars of old sacrifice<br />The shore is set, in mournful wise<br />The +mists upon the ocean brood;<br />Between the water and the air<br />The +clouds are born that float and fare<br />Between the water and the wood.</p> +<p>Upon the grey sea never sail<br />Of mortals passed within our hail,<br />Where +the last weak waves faint and flow;<br />We heard within the poplar +pale<br />The murmur of a doubtful wail<br />Of voices loved so long +ago.</p> +<p>We scarce had care to die or live,<br />We had no honey cake to give,<br />No +wine of sacrifice to shed;<br />There lies no new path over sea,<br />And +now we know how faint they be,<br />The feasts and voices of the Dead.</p> +<p>Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!<br />Glad life, sad life +we did forego<br />To dream of quietness and rest;<br />Ah, would the +fleet sweet roses here<br />Poured light and perfume through the drear<br />Pale +year, and wan land of the west.</p> +<p>Sad youth, that let the spring go by<br />Because the spring is swift +to fly,<br />Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love,<br />Behold how +sadder far is this,<br />To know that rest is nowise bliss,<br />And +darkness is the end thereof.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>VERSES ON PICTURES.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines4"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>COLINETTE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>[FOR A SKETCH BY MR. G. LESLIE, A.R.A.]</p> +<p>France your country, as we know;<br />Room enough for guessing yet,<br />What +lips now or long ago,<br />Kissed and named you - Colinette.<br />In +what fields from sea to sea,<br />By what stream your home was set,<br />Loire +or Seine was glad of thee,<br />Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?</p> +<p>Did you stand with ‘maidens ten,<br />Fairer maids were never +seen,’<br />When the young king and his men<br />Passed among +the orchards green?<br />Nay, old ballads have a note<br />Mournful, +we would fain forget;<br />No such sad old air should float<br />Round +your young brows, Colinette.</p> +<p>Say, did Ronsard sing to you,<br />Shepherdess, to lull his pain,<br />When +the court went wandering through<br />Rose pleasances of Touraine?<br />Ronsard +and his famous Rose<br />Long are dust the breezes fret;<br />You, within +the garden close,<br />You are blooming, Colinette.</p> +<p>Have I seen you proud and gay,<br />With a patched and perfumed beau,<br />Dancing +through the summer day,<br />Misty summer of Watteau?<br />Nay, so sweet +a maid as you<br />Never walked a minuet<br />With the splendid courtly +crew;<br />Nay, forgive me, Colinette.</p> +<p>Not from Greuze’s canvasses<br />Do you cast a glance, a smile;<br />You +are not as one of these,<br />Yours is beauty without guile.<br />Round +your maiden brows and hair<br />Maidenhood and Childhood met<br />Crown +and kiss you, sweet and fair,<br />New art’s blossom, Colinette.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A SUNSET OF WATTEAU.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>LUI.</p> +<p>The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,<br />Arise and tempt the +seas;<br />Our ocean is the Palace lake,<br />Our waves the ripples +that we make<br />Among the mirrored trees.</p> +<p>ELLE.</p> +<p>Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,<br />And dear the languid +dream;<br />The music mingled all day long<br />With paces of the dancing +throng,<br />And murmur of the stream.</p> +<p>An hour ago, an hour ago,<br />We rested in the shade;<br />And now, +why should we seek to know<br />What way the wilful waters flow?<br />There +is no fairer glade.</p> +<p>LUI.</p> +<p>Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail,<br />And seek him everywhere;<br />Perchance +in sunset’s golden pale<br />He listens to the nightingale,<br />Amid +the perfumed air.</p> +<p>Come, he has fled; you are not you,<br />And I no more am I;<br />Delight +is changeful as the hue<br />Of heaven, that is no longer blue<br />In +yonder sunset sky.</p> +<p>ELLE.</p> +<p>Nay, if we seek we shall not find,<br />If we knock none openeth;<br />Nay, +see, the sunset fades behind<br />The mountains, and the cold night +wind<br />Blows from the house of Death.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A NATIVITY OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>‘Wrought in the troublous times of Italy<br />By Sandro Botticelli,’ +when for fear<br />Of that last judgment, and last day drawn near<br />To +end all labour and all revelry,<br />He worked and prayed in silence; +this is she<br />That by the holy cradle sees the bier,<br />And in +spice gifts the hyssop on the spear,<br />And out of Bethlehem, Gethsemane.</p> +<p>Between the gold sky and the green o’er head,<br />The twelve +great shining angels, garlanded,<br />Marvel upon this face, wherein +combine<br />The mother’s love that shone on all of us,<br />And +maiden rapture that makes luminous<br />The brows of Margaret and Catherine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SONGS AND SONNETS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines4"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TWO HOMES.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>[To a young English lady in the Hospital of the Wounded at Carlsruhe. +Sept. 1870.]</p> +<p>What does the dim gaze of the dying find<br />To waken dream or memory, +seeing you?<br />In your sweet eyes what other eyes are blue,<br />And +in your hair what gold hair on the wind<br />Floats of the days gone +almost out of mind?<br />In deep green valleys of the Fatherland<br />He +may remember girls with locks like thine;<br />May dream how, where +the waiting angels stand,<br />Some lost love’s eyes are dim before +they shine<br />With welcome: - so past homes, or homes to be,<br />He +sees a moment, ere, a moment blind,<br />He crosses Death’s inhospitable +sea,<br />And with brief passage of those barren lands<br />Comes to +the home that is not made with hands.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>SUMMER’S ENDING.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The flags below the shadowy fern<br />Shine like spears between sun +and sea,<br />The tide and the summer begin to turn,<br />And ah, for +hearts, for hearts that yearn,<br />For fires of autumn that catch and +burn,<br />For love gone out between thee and me.</p> +<p>The wind is up, and the weather broken,<br />Blue seas, blue eyes, +are grieved and grey,<br />Listen, the word that the wind has spoken,<br />Listen, +the sound of the sea, - a token<br />That summer’s over, and troths +are broken, -<br />That loves depart as the hours decay.</p> +<p>A love has passed to the loves passed over,<br />A month has fled +to the months gone by;<br />And none may follow, and none recover<br />July +and June, and never a lover<br />May stay the wings of the Loves that +hover,<br />As fleet as the light in a sunset sky.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>NIGHTINGALE WEATHER.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[‘Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?<br />Serai-je nonnette? je +crois que non.<br />Derrière chez mon père<br />Il est +un bois taillis,<br />Le rossignol y chante<br />Et le jour et le nuit.<br />Il +chaste pour les filles<br />Qui n’ont pas d’ami;<br />Il +ne chante pas pour moi,<br />J’en ai un, Dieu merci.’ - +OLD FRENCH.]</p> +<p>I’LL never be a nun, I trow,<br />While apple bloom is white +as snow,<br />But far more fair to see;<br />I’ll never wear nun’s +black and white<br />While nightingales make sweet the night<br />Within +the apple tree.</p> +<p>Ah, listen! ’tis the nightingale,<br />And in the wood he makes +his wail,<br />Within the apple tree;<br />He singeth of the sore distress<br />Of +many ladies loverless;<br />Thank God, no song for me.</p> +<p>For when the broad May moon is low,<br />A gold fruit seen where +blossoms blow<br />In the boughs of the apple tree,<br />A step I know +is at the gate;<br />Ah love, but it is long to wait<br />Until night’s +noon bring thee!</p> +<p>Between lark’s song and nightingale’s<br />A silent space, +while dawning pales,<br />The birds leave still and free<br />For words +and kisses musical,<br />For silence and for sighs that fall<br />In +the dawn, ‘twixt him and me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LOVE AND WISDOM.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[‘When last we gathered roses in the garden<br />I found my +wits, but truly you lost yours.’<br />THE BROKEN HEART.]</p> +<p>July, and June brought flowers and love<br />To you, but I would +none thereof,<br />Whose heart kept all through summer time<br />A flower +of frost and winter rime.<br />Yours was true wisdom - was it not? -<br />Even +love; but I had clean forgot,<br />Till seasons of the falling leaf,<br />All +loves, but one that turned to grief.<br />At length at touch of autumn +tide,<br />When roses fell, and summer died,<br />All in a dawning deep +with dew,<br />Love flew to me, love fled from you.</p> +<p>The roses drooped their weary heads,<br />I spoke among the garden +beds;<br />You would not hear, you could not know,<br />Summer and love +seemed long ago,<br />As far, as faint, as dim a dream,<br />As to the +dead this world may seem.<br />Ah sweet, in winter’s miseries,<br />Perchance +you may remember this,<br />How wisdom was not justified<br />In summer +time or autumn-tide,<br />Though for this once below the sun,<br />Wisdom +and love were made at one;<br />But love was bitter-bought enough,<br />And +wisdom light of wing as love.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>GOOD-BYE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Kiss me, and say good-bye;<br />Good-bye, there is no word to say +but this,<br />Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,<br />Nor any tears +to shed, when these tears dry;<br />Kiss me, and say, good-bye.</p> +<p>Farewell, be glad, forget;<br />There is no need to say ‘forget,’ +I know,<br />For youth is youth, and time will have it so,<br />And +though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,<br />Farewell, you must +forget.</p> +<p>You shall bring home your sheaves,<br />Many, and heavy, and with +blossoms twined<br />Of memories that go not out of mind;<br />Let this +one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves<br />When you bring home your +sheaves.</p> +<p>In garnered loves of thine,<br />The ripe good fruit of many hearts +and years,<br />Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears;<br />It +grew too near the sea wind, and the brine<br />Of life, this love of +mine.</p> +<p>This sheaf was spoiled in spring,<br />And over-long was green, and +early sere,<br />And never gathered gold in the late year<br />From +autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,<br />But failed in frosts of spring.</p> +<p>Yet was it thine my sweet,<br />This love, though weak as young corn +witheréd,<br />Whereof no man may gather and make bread;<br />Thine, +though it never knew the summer heat;<br />Forget not quite, my sweet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>AN OLD PRAYER.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Greek text which cannot be reproduced<br />ODYSSEY, xiii. 59.]</p> +<p>My prayer an old prayer borroweth,<br />Of ancient love and memory +-<br />‘Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,<br />That come to +all men, come to thee.’<br />Gently as winter’s early breath,<br />Scarce +felt, what time the swallows flee,<br />To lands whereof <i>no man knoweth<br /></i>Of +summer, over land and sea;<br />So with thy soul may summer be,<br />Even +as the ancient singer saith,<br />‘Do thou farewell, till Eld +and Death,<br />That come to all men, come to thee.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>LOVE’S MIRACLE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>With other helpless folk about the gate,<br />The gate called Beautiful, +with weary eyes<br />That take no pleasure in the summer skies,<br />Nor +all things that are fairest, does she wait;<br />So bleak a time, so +sad a changeless fate<br />Makes her with dull experience early wise,<br />And +in the dawning and the sunset, sighs<br />That all hath been, and shall +be, desolate.</p> +<p>Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live,<br />And know herself +the fairest of fair things,<br />Ah, if he have no healing gift to give,<br />Warm +from his breast, and holy from his wings,<br />Or if at least Love’s +shadow in passing by<br />Touch not and heal her, surely she must die.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>DREAMS.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>He spake not truth, however wise, who said<br />That happy, and that +hapless men in sleep<br />Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep<br />As +countless, careless, races of the dead.<br />Not so, for alien paths +of dreams we tread,<br />And one beholds the faces that he sighs<br />In +vain to bring before his daylit eyes,<br />And waking, he remembers +on his bed;</p> +<p>And one with fainting heart and feeble hand<br />Fights a dim battle +in a doubtful land,<br />Where strength and courage were of no avail;<br />And +one is borne on fairy breezes far<br />To the bright harbours of a golden +star<br />Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>FAIRY LAND.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In light of sunrise and sunsetting,<br />The long days lingered, +in forgetting<br />That ever passion, keen to hold<br />What may not +tarry, was of old,<br />In lands beyond the weary wold;<br />Beyond +the bitter stream whose flood<br />Runs red waist-high with slain men’s +blood.<br />Was beauty once a thing that died?<br />Was pleasure never +satisfied?<br />Was rest still broken by the vain<br />Desire of action, +bringing pain,<br />To die in languid rest again?<br />All this was +quite forgotten there,<br />Where never winter chilled the year,<br />Nor +spring brought promise unfulfilled,<br />Nor, with the eager summer +killed,<br />The languid days drooped autumnwards.<br />So magical a +season guards<br />The constant prime of a cool June;<br />So slumbrous +is the river’s tune,<br />That knows no thunder of heavy rains,<br />Nor +ever in the summer wanes,<br />Like waters of the summer time<br />In +lands far from the Fairy clime.</p> +<p>Yea, there the Fairy maids are kind,<br />With nothing of the changeful +mind<br />Of maidens in the days that were;<br />And if no laughter +fills the air<br />With sound of silver murmurings,<br />And if no prayer +of passion brings<br />A love nigh dead to life again,<br />Yet sighs +more subtly sweet remain,<br />And smiles that never satiate,<br />And +loves that fear scarce any fate.<br />Alas, no words can bring the bloom<br />Of +Fairy Land; the faint perfume,<br />The sweet low light, the magic air,<br />To +eyes of who has not been there:<br />Alas, no words, nor any spell<br />Can +lull the eyes that know too well,<br />The lost fair world of Fairy +Land.</p> +<p>Ah, would that I had never been<br />The lover of the Fairy Queen!<br />Or +would that through the sleepy town,<br />The grey old place of Ercildoune,<br />And +all along the little street,<br />The soft fall of the white deer’s +feet<br />Came, with the mystical command<br />That I must back to Fairy +Land!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[‘Les Sirènes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles +compagnes de Proserpine, qu’elles estoient toujours ensemble. +Esmues du juste deuil de la perte de leur chère compagne, et +enuyées jusques au desespoir, elles s’arrestèrent +à la mer Sicilienne, où par leurs chants elles attiroient +les navigans, mais l’unique fin de la volupé de leur musique +est la Mort.’ - PONTUS DE TYARD. 1570.]</p> +<p>I.</p> +<p>The Sirens once were maidens innocent<br />That through the water-meads +with Proserpine<br />Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content<br />Cool +fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,<br />With lilies woven and with +wet woodbine;<br />Till once they sought the bright AEtnaean flowers,<br />And +their bright mistress fled from summer hours<br />With Hades, down the +irremeable decline.<br />And they have sought her all the wide world +through<br />Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong<br />Have filled +and changed their song, and o’er the blue<br />Rings deadly sweet +the magic of the song,<br />And whoso hears must listen till he die<br />Far +on the flowery shores of Sicily.</p> +<p>II.</p> +<p>So is it with this singing art of ours,<br />That once with maids +went maidenlike, and played<br />With woven dances in the poplar-shade,<br />And +all her song was but of lady’s bowers<br />And the returning swallows, +and spring-flowers,<br />Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,<br />A +shadowy land; and now hath overweighed<br />Her singing chaplet with +the snow and showers.<br />Yea, fair well-water for the bitter brine<br />She +left, and by the margin of life’s sea<br />Sings, and her song +is full of the sea’s moan,<br />And wild with dread, and love +of Proserpine;<br />And whoso once has listened to her, he<br />His +whole life long is slave to her alone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A LA BELLE HÉLÈNE.<br />AFTER RONSARD.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>More closely than the clinging vine<br />About the wedded tree,<br />Clasp +thou thine arms, ah, mistress mine!<br />About the heart of me.<br />Or +seem to sleep, and stoop your face<br />Soft on my sleeping eyes,<br />Breathe +in your life, your heart, your grace,<br />Through me, in kissing wise.<br />Bow +down, bow down your face, I pray,<br />To me, that swoon to death,<br />Breathe +back the life you kissed away,<br />Breathe back your kissing breath.<br />So +by your eyes I swear and say,<br />My mighty oath and sure,<br />From +your kind arms no maiden may<br />My loving heart allure.<br />I’ll +bear your yoke, that’s light enough,<br />And to the Elysian plain,<br />When +we are dead of love, my love,<br />One boat shall bear us twain.<br />They’ll +flock around you, fleet and fair,<br />All true loves that have been,<br />And +you of all the shadows there,<br />Shall be the shadow queen.<br /><i>Ah +shadow-loves, and shadow-lips</i>!<br /><i>Ah, while ’tis called +to-day</i>,<br /><i>Love me, my love, for summer slips</i>,<br /><i>And +August ebbs away.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>SYLVIE ET AURÉLIE.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[IN MEMORY OF GÉRARD DE NERVAL.]</p> +<p>Two loves there were, and one was born<br />Between the sunset and +the rain;<br />Her singing voice went through the corn,<br />Her dance +was woven ‘neath the thorn,<br />On grass the fallen blossoms +stain;<br />And suns may set, and moons may wane,<br />But this love +comes no more again.</p> +<p>There were two loves and one made white<br />Thy singing lips, and +golden hair;<br />Born of the city’s mire and light,<br />The +shame and splendour of the night,<br />She trapped and fled thee unaware;<br />Not +through the lamplight and the rain<br />Shalt thou behold this love +again.</p> +<p>Go forth and seek, by wood and hill,<br />Thine ancient love of dawn +and dew;<br />There comes no voice from mere or rill,<br />Her dance +is over, fallen still<br />The ballad burdens that she knew;<br />And +thou must wait for her in vain,<br />Till years bring back thy youth +again.</p> +<p>That other love, afield, afar<br />Fled the light love, with lighter +feet.<br />Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,<br />And flit +in dreams from star to star,<br />That dead love shalt thou never meet,<br />Till +through bleak dawn and blowing rain<br />Thy fled soul find her soul +again.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>A LOST PATH.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, had a certain proper mode of ecstasy, +whereby, as Porphyry saith, his soul, becoming free from his deathly +flesh, was made one with the Spirit that is in the World.]</p> +<p>Alas, the path is lost, we cannot leave<br />Our bright, our clouded +life, and pass away<br />As through strewn clouds, that stain the quiet +eve,<br />To heights remoter of the purer day.<br />The soul may not, +returning whence she came,<br />Bathe herself deep in Being, and forget<br />The +joys that fever, and the cares that fret,<br />Made once more one with +the eternal flame<br />That breathes in all things ever more the same.<br />She +would be young again, thus drinking deep<br />Of her old life; and this +has been, men say,<br />But this we know not, who have only sleep<br />To +soothe us, sleep more terrible than day,<br />Where dead delights, and +fair lost faces stray,<br />To make us weary at our wakening;<br />And +of that long-lost path to the Divine<br />We dream, as some Greek shepherd +erst might sing,<br />Half credulous, of easy Proserpine<br />And of +the lands that lie ‘beneath the day’s decline.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE SHADE OF HELEN.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for +the Gods, having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, +sent the same to be wife to Paris. For this shadow then the Greeks +and Trojans slew each other.]</p> +<p>Why from the quiet hollows of the hills,<br />And extreme meeting +place of light and shade,<br />Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became<br />Clouds +among sister clouds, where fair spent beams<br />And dying glories of +the sun would dwell,<br />Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,<br />Strange +hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,<br />And borne me from the +silent shadowy hills,<br />Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,<br />To +harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?</p> +<p>One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,<br />Made harsh, made +keen with love that knows me not,<br />And some strange force, within +me or around,<br />Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,<br />And +somewhere there is fever in the halls,<br />That troubles me, for no +such trouble came<br />To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.</p> +<p>The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry,<br />That house, and +wife, and lands, and all Troy town,<br />Are little to lose, if they +may keep me here,<br />And see me flit, a pale and silent shade,<br />Among +the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.</p> +<p>At other hours another life seems mine,<br />Where one great river +runs unswollen of rain,<br />By pyramids of unremembered kings,<br />And +homes of men obedient to the Dead.<br />There dark and quiet faces come +and go<br />Around me, then again the shriek of arms,<br />And all the +turmoil of the Ilian men.<br />What are they? Even shadows such +as I.<br />What make they? Even this - the sport of Gods -<br />The +sport of Gods, however free they seem.<br />Ah would the game were ended, +and the light,<br />The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,<br />Withdrawn, +and I once more with sister shades,<br />Unloved, forgotten, mingled +with the mist,<br />Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.<br />Ah, +would ‘t were the cloud’s playtime, when the sun<br />Clothes +us in raiment of a rosy flame,<br />And through the sky we flit, and +gather grey,<br />Like men that leave their golden youth behind,<br />And +through their wind-driven ways they gather grey,<br />And we like them +grow wan, and the chill East<br />Receives us, as the Earth accepts +all men, -<br />But <i>we</i> await the dawn of a new day.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>SONNETS TO POETS.</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h3>JACQUES TAHUREAU. 1530.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Ah thou! that, undeceived and unregretting,<br />Saw’st Death +so near thee on the flowery way,<br />And with no sigh that life was +near the setting,<br />Took’st the delight and dalliance of the +day,<br />Happy thou wert, to live and pass away<br />Ere life or love +had done thee any wrong;<br />Ere thy wreath faded, or thy locks grew +grey,<br />Or summer came to lull thine April song,<br />Sweet as all +shapes of sweet things unfulfilled,<br />Buds bloomless, and the broken +violet,<br />The first spring days, the sounds and scents thereof;<br />So +clear thy fire of song, so early chilled,<br />So brief, so bright thy +life that gaily met<br />Death, for thy Death came hand in hand with +Love.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>FRANÇOIS VILLON. 1450.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>List, all that love light mirth, light tears, and all<br />That know +the heart of shameful loves, or pure;<br />That know delights depart, +desires endure,<br />A fevered tribe of ghosts funereal,<br />Widowed +of dead delights gone out of call;<br />List, all that deem the glory +of the rose<br />Is brief as last year’s suns, or last year’s +snows<br />The new suns melt from off the sundial.</p> +<p>All this your master Villon knew and sung;<br />Despised delights, +and faint foredone desire;<br />And shame, a deathless worm, a quenchless +fire;<br />And laughter from the heart’s last sorrow wrung,<br />When +half-repentance but makes evil whole,<br />And prayer that cannot help +wears out the soul.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>PIERRE RONSARD. 1560.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,<br />Crowned by the Muses +with the laurel-wreath;<br />I see the roses hiding underneath,<br />Cassandra’s +gift; she was less dear than they.<br />Thou, Master, first hast roused +the lyric lay,<br />The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,<br />Hast +sung sweet answer to the songs that breathe<br />Through ages, and through +ages far away.</p> +<p>Yea, and in thee the pulse of ancient passion<br />Leaped, and the +nymphs amid the spring-water<br />Made bare their lovely limbs in the +old fashion,<br />And birds’ song in the branches was astir.<br />Ah, +but thy songs are sad, thy roses wan,<br />Thy bees have fed on yews +Sardinian.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>GÉRARD DE NERVAL.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Of all that were thy prisons - ah, untamed,<br />Ah, light and sacred +soul! - none holds thee now;<br />No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, +but thou<br />Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,<br />About whose +gates, with weary wings and maimed,<br />Thou most wert wont to linger, +entering there<br />A moment, and returning rapt, with fair<br />Tidings +that men or heeded not or blamed;<br />And they would smile and wonder, +seeing where<br />Thou stood’st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, +or wind,<br />Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,<br />Caught from the +Valois peasants; dost thou find<br />Old prophecies fulfilled now, old +tales true<br />In the new world, where all things are made new?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h3>THE DEATH OF MIRANDOLA. 1494.</h3> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>[‘The Queen of Heaven appeared, comforting him and promising +that he should not utterly die.’ - THOMAS MORE, <i>Life of Piens, +Earl of Mirandola</i>.]</p> +<p>Strange lilies came with autumn; new and old<br />Were mingling, +and the old world passed away,<br />And the night gathered, and the +shadows grey<br />Dimmed the kind eyes and dimmed the locks of gold,<br />And +face beloved of Mirandola.<br />The Virgin then, to comfort him and +stay,<br />Kissed the thin cheek, and kissed the lips acold,<br />The +lips unkissed of women many a day.<br />Nor she alone, for queens of +the old creed,<br />Like rival queens that tended Arthur, there<br />Were +gathered, Venus in her mourning weed,<br />Pallas and Dian; wise, and +pure, and fair<br />Was he they mourned, who living did not wrong<br />One +altar of its dues of wine and song.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Aphrodite +- Avril.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> From the +Romaic.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>End of the Project Gutenberg eBook Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: +with Other Poems</p> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named blpof10h.htm or blpof10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, blpof11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, blpof10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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