No More Learning

Les Amours de Cassandre: CLXXIV

Now when the sky and when the earth again

Fill with ice: cold hail scattered everywhere,

And the horror of the worst months of the year

Makes the grass bristle across the plain:

Now when the wind mutinously prowling,

Cracks the boulders, and uproots the trees,

When the redoubled roaring of the seas

Fills all the shoreline with its wild surging:

Love burns me, and winter's bitter cold

That freezes all, cannot freeze the old

Ardour in my heart that lasts forever.

See, Lovers, how I'm treated, in what ways

I die of cold through summer's scorching days:

Of heat, in the depths of icy weather.

Les Amours de Cassandre: CXCII

It was hot, and sleep, gently flowing,

Was trickling through my dreaming soul,

When the vague form of a vibrant ghost

Arrived to disturb my dreaming, softly

Leaning down to me, pure ivory teeth,

And offering me her flickering tongue,

Her lips were kissing me, sweet and long,

Mouth on mouth, thigh on thigh beneath.

What coral, what lilies, and what roses,

In seeming, my open hand discloses,

Now, with twin caresses stroking her.

Faith, oh my faith, what fragrant breath,

What sweet odour from her mouth's excess,

What rubies and what diamonds were there.

Les Amours de Cassandre: CXCIII

Those twin pulses of thickly clotted milk

Ebb and flow through their white valley,

As the salt-tide, in its estuary,

Slowly rises, and slowly ebbs, like silk.

A space is created between them there,

Like a level pass between two hills

That the snowdrift's whiteness softly fills,

When the gusts of wind have dropped in winter.

There, two gleaming rubies stand erectly,

Whose crimson rays set off that ivory,

Smoothed so uniformly on every side:

There all grace abounds, and every worth,

And beauty, if there's any on this earth,

Flies to rest there in that sweet paradise.

Les Amours de Marie: VI

I'm sending you some flowers, that my hand

Picked just now from all this blossoming,

That, if they'd not been gathered this evening,

Tomorrow would be scattered on the ground.

Take this for an example, one that's sound,

That your beauty, in all its flowering

Will fall, in a moment, quickly withering,

And like the flowers will no more be found.

Time goes by, my lady: time goes by,

Ah! It's not time but we ourselves who pass,

And soon beneath the silent tomb we lie:

And after death there'll be no news, alas,

Of these desires of which we are so full:

So love me now, while you are beautiful.

Note: Ronsard's Marie was an unidentified country girl from Anjou.

Les Amours de Marie: IX

Marie, the man who'd change the letters of your name

Would find out aimer: so love me then, Marie,

Your name invites you to love, and naturally.

They'll find no pardon that Nature do betray.
If you are willing to pledge me your heart, lover,

I'll offer mine: and so we will grasp entire

All the pleasures of life, and no strange desire

Will make my spirit prisoner to another.

One must love something in this world of ours, mistress,

They who love nothing live, in their wretchedness,

Like the Scythians did, and they would spend their life

Without tasting the sweetness of the sweetest joy.

Nothing is sweet without Venus and her boy:

And when I no longer love, then let me die!

Note: The Scythians at the extreme end of the Empire in Roman times were regarded as living barbaric lives (See Ovid's Tristia and Ex Ponto). Venus' boy is of course Cupid.

Les Amours de Marie: XLIV

Kiss me then Marie: no then, don't kiss me,

But suck my heart from me with your gentle breath:

No, don't suck it from me, but to your caress

Suck my whole soul, from every vein of me.

Yet, do not do so: for what then would I be

Other than an empty phantom after death,

Bodiless on that shore where love is surely less

(Pardon me Dis) than our idlest fantasy?

Marie, while we live let us love each other too,

Love does not reign there among that pallid crew

Those ghosts whose eyelids are sealed in iron sleep.

It's not true that Dis himself loved Persephone.

The unfeeling heart can't know a pain so sweet:

Love reigns on earth above, not beneath our feet.

Note: See Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' for an expression of like sentiment.

Sur La Mort de Marie: IV

As in May month, on its stem we see the rose

In its sweet youthfulness, in its freshest flower,

Making the heavens jealous with living colour,

Dawn sprinkles it with tears in the morning glow:

Grace lies in all its petals, and love, I know,

Scenting the trees and scenting the garden's bower,

But, assaulted by scorching heat or a shower,

Languishing, it dies, and petals on petals flow.

So in your freshness, so in all your first newness,

When earth and heaven both honoured your loveliness,

The Fates destroyed you, and you are but dust below.

Accept my tears and my sorrow for obsequies,

This bowl of milk, this basket of flowers from me,

So living and dead your body will still be rose.

Note: Ronsard's later tributes to 'Marie' were written for the Duke of Anjou (the future Henri III) whose mistress Marie de Cleves died in 1574.

Sonnets Pour Helene Book I: VI

Among love's pounding seas, for me there's no support,

And I can see no light, and yet have no desires

(O desire too bold!