All, all, that with longing and with rapture
Here on earth a noble heart doth warm,
Vanishes like sunshine in the autumn,
When the horizon’s verge is veiled in storm.
Friends at evening part with warm embraces, — 85
Morning looks upon the death-pale faces;
Even the joys that Love and Friendship find
Leave on earth no lasting trace behind.
Gentle Love! how all thy fields of roses
Bounded close by thorny deserts lie! 90
And a sudden tempest’s awful shadow
Oft doth darken Friendship’s brightest sky!
Vain are titles, honor, might, and glory!
On the monarch’s temples proud and hoary,
And the way-worn pilgrim’s trembling head, 95
Doth the grave one common darkness spread!
The Stars
By Martin Opitz
NIGHT comes stealing from the East,
Frees from labor man and beast,
Brings to all the wished-for rest,
And the sorrow to my breast.
Shines the moonlight clear and cold, 5
Shine the little stars of gold;
Glad are all things far and wide; —
I alone in grief abide.
Two are missing, two in vain
Seek I in the starry train; 10
And these stars that do not rise
Are my darling’s lovely eyes.
Naught I heed the moonlight clear,
Dim to me the stars appear.
Since is hidden from my sight 15
Kunigund, my heaven of light.
But when in their splendor shine
Over me those suns divine,
Then it seemeth best to me
Neither moon nor stars should be. 20
Rondel
By Charles D’Orleans
HENCE away, begone, begone,
Carking care and melancholy!
Think ye thus to govern me
All my life along, as ye have done?
That shall ye not, I promise ye, 5
Reason shall have the mastery.
So hence away, begone, begone,
Carking care and melancholy!
If ever ye return this way,
With your mournful company, 10
A curse be on ye, and the day
That brings ye moping back to me!
Hence away, begone, I say,
Carking care and melancholy!
The Banks of the Cher
By Antoine-Marin le Mièrre
IN that province of our France
Proud of being called its garden,
In those fields where once by chance
Pepin’s father with his lance
Made the Saracen sue for pardon; 5
There between the old château
Which two hundred years ago
Was the centre of the League,
Whose infernal, black intrigue
Almost fatal was, ‘t is reckoned, 10
To young Francis, called the Second,
And that pleasant city’s wall
Of this canton capital,
City memorable in story,
And whose fruits preserved with care 15
Make the riches and the glory
Of the gourmands everywhere! —
Now, a more prosaic head
Without verbiage might have said,
There between Tours and Amboise 20
In the province of Touraine;
But the poet, and with cause,
Loves to ponder and to pause;
Ever more his soul delighteth
In the language that he writeth, 25
Finer far than other people’s;
So, while he describes the steeples,
One might travel through Touraine,
Far as Tours and back again.
On the borders of the Cher 30
Is a valley green and fair,
Where the eye, that travels fast,
Tires with the horizon vast;
There, since five and forty lustres,
From the bosom of the stream, 35
Like the castle of a dream,
High into the fields of air
The château of Chenonceaux
Lifts its glittering vanes in clusters.
Six stone arches of a bridge 40
Into channels six divide
The swift river in its flow,
And upon their granite ridge
Hold this beautiful château,
Flanked with turrets on each side. 45
Time, that grand old man with wings,
Who destroys all earthly things,
Hath not tarnished yet one stone,
White as ermine is alone,
Of this palace of dead kings. 50
One in speechless wonder sees
In the rampart-walls of Blois,
To the shame of the Valois,
Marble stained with blood of Guise;
By the crimes that it can show, 55
By its war-beleaguered gates,
Famous be that black château;
Thou art famous for thy fêtes
And thy feastings, Chenonceaux!
Ah, most beautiful of places, 60
With what pleasure thee I see;
Everywhere the selfsame traces,
Residence of all the Graces
And Love’s inn and hostelry!
Here that second Agrippina, 65
The imperious Catharina,
Jealous of all pleasant things,
To her cruel purpose still
Subjugating every will,
Kept her sons as underlings 70
Fastened to her apron-strings.
Here, divested of his armor,
As gallant as he was brave,
Francis First to some fair charmer
Many an hour of dalliance gave. 75
Here, beneath these ceilings florid,
Chose Diana her retreat, —
Not Diana of the groves
With the crescent on her forehead,
Who, as swiftest arrow fleet, 80
Files before all earthly loves;
But that charming mortal dame,
She the Poiterine alone,
She the Second Henry’s flame,
Who with her celestial zone 85
Loves and Laughters made secure
From banks of Cher to banks of Eure.
Cher, whose stream, obscure and troubled
Flowed before with many a halt,
By this palace is ennobled, 90
Since it bathes its noble vault.
Even the boatman, hurrying fast,
Pauses, mute with admiration
To behold a pile so vast
Rising like an exhalation 95
From the stream; and with his mast
Lowered salutes it, gliding past.
To the Forest of Gastine
By Pierre de Ronsard
STRETCHED in thy shadows I rehearse,
Gastine, thy solitudes,
Even as the Grecians in their verse
The Erymanthian woods.
For I, alas! cannot conceal 5
From any future race
The pleasure, the delight, I feel
In thy green dwelling-place.
Thou who beneath thy sheltering bowers
Dost make me visions see; 10
Thou who dost cause that at all hours
The Muses answer me;
Thou who from each importunate care
Dost free me with a look,
When lost I roam I know not where 15
Conversing with a book!
Forever may thy thickets hold
The amorous brigade
Of Satyrs and of Sylvans bold,
That make the Nymphs afraid; 20
In thee the Muses evermore
Their habitation claim,
And n
ever may thy woods deplore
The sacrilegious flame.
Fontenay
By Guillaume Amfrye de Chaulieu
O AMIABLE solitude,
Sojourn of silence and of peace!
Asylum where forever cease
All tumult and inquietude!
I, who have chanted many a time 5
To tender accents of my lyre
All that one suffers from the fire
Of love and beauty in its prime, —
Shall I, whose gratitude requites
All blessing I from thee receive, — 10
Shall I, unsung, in silence leave
Thy benefactions and delights?
Thou bringest back my youthful dream;
Calmest my agitated breast,
And of my idleness and rest 15
Makest a happiness extreme.
Amid these hamlets and these woods
Again do I begin to live,
And to the winds all memory give
Of sorrows and solicitudes. 20
What smiling pictures and serene
Each day reveals to sight and sense,
Of treasures with which Providence
Embellishes this rural scene!
How sweet it is in yonder glade 25
To see, when noonday burns the plain,
The flocks around the shepherd swain
Reposing in the elm-tree’s shade!
To hear at eve our flageolets
Answered by all the hills around, 30
And all the villages resound
With hautbois and with canzonets!
Alas! these peaceful days, perforce,
With too great swiftness onward press;
My indolence and idleness 35
Are powerless to suspend their course.
Old age comes stealing on apace;
And cruel Death shall soon or late
Execute the decree of fate
That gives me to him without grace. 40
O Fontenay! forever dear!
Where first I saw the light of day,
I soon from life shall steal away
To sleep with my forefathers here.
Ye Muses, that have nourished me 45
In this delightful spot of earth;
Beautiful trees, that saw my birth,
Erelong ye too my death shall see!
Meanwhile let me in patience wait
Beneath thy shadowy woods, nor grieve 50
That I so soon their shade must leave
For that dark manor desolate,
Whither not one shall follow me
Of all these trees that my own hand
Hath planted, and for pastime planned, 55
Saving alone the cypress-tree!
Pray for Me
By Charles-Hubert Millevoye
IN the hamlet desolate,
Brooding o’er his woes in vain,
Lay a young man, doomed by fate,
Wasted by disease and pain.
“People of the chaumière,” 5
Said he,”’t is the hour of prayer;
Ringing are the bells! all ye
Who are praying, pray for me!
“When you see the waterfall
Covered with dark boughs in spring, 10
You will say, He’s free from all,
All his pain and suffering.
Then returning to this shore
Sing your simple plaint once more,
And when ring the bells, all ye 15
Who are praying, pray for me.
“Falsehood I could not endure,
Was the enemy of hate;
Of an honest life and pure
The end approaches, and I wait. 20
Short my pilgrimage appears;
In the springtime of my years
I am dying; and all ye
Who are praying, pray for me.
“Best of friends and only friend, 25
Worthy of all love and praise,
Thine my life was to the end;
Ah, ‘t was but a life of days.
People of the chaumière,
Pity, at the hour of prayer, 30
Her who comes with bended knee,
Saying also, Pray for me!”
Vire
By Gustave le Vavasseur
IT is good to rhyming go
From the valleys of Vire to the valley of Bures
For a poet of Normandy the Low
It is good to rhyming go!
One is inspired and all aglow 5
With the old singers of voice so pure.
It is good to rhyming go
From the valleys of Vire to the valleys of Bures!
Do you know one Thomas Sonnet?
He was a medical man of Vire; 10
And turned very well a roundelay,
Do you know this Thomas Sonnet?
To the sick he used to say,
“Never drink bad wine, my dear!”
Do you know this Thomas Sonnet? 15
He was a medical man of Vire.
Do you know one Master Le Houx?
He was an advocate of Vire;
The taste of dry and sweet he knew;
Do you know this Master Le Houx? 20
From the holly boughs his name he drew
Which as tavern-signs one sees appear.
Do you know this Master Le Houx?
He was an advocate of Vire.
Do you know one Master Olivier? 25
He was an ancient fuller of Vire;
He only fulled his tub, they say;
Do you know this Master Olivier?
As to his trade, it was only play;
He knew how to sing and drink and leer; 30
Do you know this Master Olivier?
He was an ancient fuller of Vire.
Olivier, Le Houx, Le Sonnet
Are Peace, and Tavern, and Poesy;
Every good rhymer knows to-day 35
Olivier, Le Houx, Le Sonnet.
Dame Reason throws her cap away
If the rhyme well chosen be;
Olivier, Le Houx, Le Sonnet
Are Peace, and Tavern, and Poesy. 40
Vire is a delicious place,
Vire is a little Norman town.
‘T is not the home of a godlike race,
Vire is a delicious place;
But what gives it its crowning grace 45
Is the peace that there comes down.
Vire is a delicious place,
Vire is a little Norman town.
There are taverns by the score
And solid are the drinkers there. 50
More than in Evreux of yore,
There are taverns by the score.
One sees there empty brains no more,
But empty glasses everywhere.
There are taverns by the score, 55
And solid are the drinkers there.
‘T is the fresh cradle of the Song,
And mother of the Vaudeville;
Lawyers as cupbearers throng,
‘T is the fresh cradle of the Song. 60
The fullers pierce the puncheons strong,
The doctors drink abroad their fill;
‘T is the fresh cradle of the Song
And mother of the Vaudeville.
It is good to rhyming go 65
From the valleys of Vire to the valleys of Bures!
For a poet of Normandy the Low,
It is good to rhyming go!
One is inspired and all aglow
With the old singers of voice so pure. 70
It is good to rhyming go
From the valleys of Vire to the valleys of Bures!
A Florentine Song
IF I am fair’t is for myself alone,
I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me,
Nor would I call another’s heart my own,
Nor have a gallant lover to revere me.
For surely I will plight my faith to none, 5
Thoug
h many an amorous cit would jump to hear me
For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers,
When once they find that maidens are believers.
Yet should I find one that in truth could please me,
One whom I thought my charms had power to move, 10
Why then, I do confess, the whim might seize me,
To taste for once the porringer of love.
Alas! there is one pair of eyes that tease me;
And then that mouth! — he seems a star above,
He is so good, so gentle, and so kind, 15
And so unlike the sullen, clownish hind.
What love may be, indeed I cannot tell,
Nor if I e’er have known his cunning arts;
But true it is, there’s one I like so well,
That when he looks at me my bosom starts. 20
And, if we meet, my heart begins to swell;
And the green fields around, when he departs,
Seem like a nest from which the bird has flown;
Can this be love? — say — ye who love have known.
A Neapolitan Canzonet
ONE morning, on the sea-shore as I strayed,
My heart dropped in the sand beside the sea;
I asked of yonder mariners, who said
They saw it in thy bosom, — worn by thee.
And I am come to seek that heart of mine, 5
For I have none, and thou, alas, hast two;
If this be so, dost know what thou shalt do? —
Still keep my heart, and give me, give me thine.
Christmas Carol
One of the Neapolitan Pastorali de’ Zampognari.
WHEN Christ was born in Bethlehem,
‘T was night, but seemed the noon of day;
The stars, whose light
Was pure and bright,
Shone with unwavering ray; 5
But one, one glorious star
Guided the Eastern Magi from afar.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 148
