| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | Of His Lady’s Old Age (II.) | | By Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585) |
| | Translated by C. Kegan Paul
Another rendering of the same Sonnet
WHEN very old, at eve, while candles flare, | |
| Chatting and spinning by the fire you sit, | |
| And, marvelling, you hum the lines I writ, | |
| Say: Ronsard sung me once when I was fair. | |
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| Then every serving-maid who slumbers there, | 5 |
| Nodding above her task with drowsy wit, | |
| Hearing my name, will rouse at sound of it | |
| And bless your name, your deathless praise declare. | |
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| A disembodied ghost, I shall have laid | |
| My bones to rest beneath the myrtle shade, | 10 |
| While you, a crone, crouch o’er the embers’ glow, | |
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| Mourning my love, and your sublime disdain; | |
| Live, trust me, wait not for to-morrow’s pain, | |
| But cull to-day life’s roses as they blow. | | | | |
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