| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | On His Lady’s Waking | | By Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585) |
| | Translated by Andrew Lang
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, | 5 |
| None such the close of the Hesperides | |
| Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these, | |
| Nor she that had of nursling Mars the care. | |
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| Even such a bosom, and so fair it was, | |
| Pure as the perfect work of Phidias, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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