Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SAME SUBJECT, by PIERRE DE RONSARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SAME SUBJECT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When that your sail bent to the ocean-swell
Last Line: And left us only longing and regret.
Subject(s): Beauty; Eyes; Fortune; Lips; Muses; Nature; Sailing & Sailors


WHEN that your sail bent to the ocean-swell
And from our weeping eyes bore you away,
The self-same sail bore far from France that day
The Muses, who were wont with us to dwell
While happy Fortune stayed you in our land
And the French sceptre lay within your hand. . . .

The Muses weeping left our countryside.
What should the nine fair comrades sing of more,
Since you, their beauteous subject and their guide,
On unreturning ways have left our shore,
Since you, that gave them power to speak and sing,
Cut short their words and left them sorrowing.

Your lips, where Nature set a garden-growth
Of pinks that sweet Persuasion watereth
With nectar and with honey; and your mouth
Made all of rubies, pearls, and gentle breath --

Your starry eyes, two fires that Love controls,
That make the darkest night like day to shine,
And pierce men's hearts with flame, and teach men's souls
To know the virtue of their light divine --

The alabaster of your brow, the gold
Of curls whose slightest ringlet might have bound
A Scythian's heart, and made a warrior bold
Let fall his sword in battle to the ground --

The white of ivory that rounds your breast,
Your hand, so long and slender, and so pure;
Your perfect body, Nature's finished best
And Heaven's ideal in earth-drawn portraiture --

All these, alas! are gone. . . . What wonder then
(Since all the grace that lavish Heaven could pour,
Revealing beauty once for all to men,
Hath left fair France) if France can sing no more?
How should sweet songs to lips of poets come,
When for your loss the Muses' selves are dumb?

All that is beautiful is transient too . . .
Lilies and roses live brief days and few.
Even so your beauty, brilliant as the sun,
In one brief day for France has risen and set;
Bright as the lightning, 'twas as quickly gone,
And left us only longing and regret.





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