ON HIS LADY’S WAKING. RONSARD, 1550 MY lady woke upon a morning fair, What time Apollo’s chariot takes the skies, And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes His empty quiver, Love was standing there: I saw two apples that her breast doth bear None such the close of the Hesperides Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these, Nor she that had of nursling Mars the care. Even such a bosom, and so fair it was, Pure as the perfect work of Phidias, That sad Andromeda’s discomfiture Left bare, when Perseus passed her on a day, And pale as Death for fear of Death she lay, With breast as marble cold, as marble pure. HIS LADY’S DEATH. RONSARD, 1550. TWAIN that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled; One laurel-crowned abides in heaven, and one Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen sun, A light of love among the loveless dead. The first is Chastity, that vanquished The archer Love, that held joint empery With the sweet beauty that made war on me, When laughter of lips with laughing eyes was wed. Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control, The earth holds her fair body, and her soul An angel with glad angels triumpheth; Love has no more that he can do; desire Is buried, and my heart a faded fire, And for Death’s sake, I am in love with Death. HIS LADY’S TOMB. RONSARD, 1550. AS in the gardens, all through May, the rose, Lovely, and young, and fair apparelled, Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red, When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows; Graces and Loves within her breast repose, The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed, Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose,— So this, the perfect beauty of our days, When earth and heaven were vocal of her praise, The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes; And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom, That dead, as living, she may be with roses. SHADOWS OF HIS LADY. JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527–1555. WITHIN the sand of what far river lies The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love? What highest circle of the Heavens above Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes? And where is the rich sea whose coral vies With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough? What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof The fled soul lives in her cheeks’ rosy guise? What Parian marble that is loveliest, Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast? When drew she breath from the Sabæan glade? Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea, Gardens, and glades Sabæan, all that be The far-off splendid semblance of my maid! MOONLIGHT.