Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STANZAS, by PIERRE CORNEILLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

STANZAS, by                    
First Line: If, marchioness, you can descry
Last Line: In one who must, like me, be feared.


IF, Marchioness, you can descry
My face becoming old and sere,
Remember, when as old as I,
No whit more comely you'll appear.

Time, which delights each fairest thing
To fade and tarnish, and disgrace,
Shall ruin to your roses bring,
As furrows on my forehead trace.

To one same course do fate or star
Rule night and day our destiny.
I late was seen as now you are;
What I am now you soon shall be.

Yet I, at least, possess some charms--
Some excellencies so sublime--
That I can look without alarms
Upon the ravages of time.

You, too, have charms which all adore;
Still, lady, mine--which now you scorn--
May yet exist long ages o'er,
When yours long since are lost and worn.

Mine from oblivion can reprieve
Bright eyes, and still their fame renew,
And make a thousand years believe
Whate'er I choose to say of you.

Among that distant race of men
With whom my credit yet shall live,
The glory of your charms shall then
Be just as much as I shall give.

Remember, then, fair Marchioness,
Though shrinking from a grizzled beard,
It should be courted, ne'ertheless,
In one who must, like me, be feared.





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