The
delighted
King loaded
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
Come and waken on these voiceless lips of mine the swallow-song!
Translation of H. W. P.
CALPURNIUS SICULUS
THE RUSTIC IN THE AMPHITHEATRE
C
ORYDON—I saw the heaven: high structure of woven timbers
wrought,
Looking down on the very Tarpeian rock, methought;
I saw the gradients vast, and I gained by easy stairs
The place assigned to the common folk, and the women's chairs.
Where these and the men in homely raiment view the show;
For the statelier places under the open sky below
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
Are all for the knights and the tribunes in their snowy dress.
Even as our sunny valley in the wilderness
Ringed by these forest ranks that aye reclining seem,
Flares to the unbroken chain of hills about its brim,
So there, the arena circuit girds the level ground,
And the massive hemispheres in an oval vast are bound.
But how to tell thee all, which I scarce had eyes to see
In part? For the universal splendor dazzled me.
And there I stood agape, and as rooted to the spot,-
Though little of all the coming wonders then I wot,-
Till an ancient gaffer on my left hand spake and said:
"No marvel if all this glory hath turned thy clownish head,
Who knowest, mayhap, not gold by sight, nor ever saw
Statelier home than a starveling peasant's hut of straw!
Why, hoary-headed and shaky as I stand here to-day,
Having grown old in the city-I know not what to say!
All they have shown us in years before is poor and mean,
Sordid, I tell thee, man, to this bewildering scene!
Look how the gem-set barriers and gilded loggia shine!
And down on the marble wall,- the arena's boundary-line,—
Where are the foremost seats of all, dost thou discern
The cylinders made of beauteous ivory slabs, that turn
Smoothly on polished axles, and suddenly let slip
Claws of the dizzied climber, who tumbles in a heap?
For him too glitter the nets of golden wire hung out,
Each from an ivory tusk,-the arena round about
Whole tusks, and all of a size! " And I, Lycotas, deem
Each one of those tusks was longer than our plowshare beam!
And what shall I tell thee next? All manner of beasts were
-
-:
there,
The elk, even in his own native forest rare;
With snow-white hares, and horrid boars, and bulls galore!
Some without necks, a hideous hump on the shoulders bore;
There were shaggy manes and bearded chins. And others yet
Had rigid dewlaps all with quivering bristles set.
But the strange, wild forest creatures made not all the show:
Seals were there, along with the bear, their constant foe;
And the shapeless being called a river-horse, and born
Of the stream whose overflowings quicken the vernal corn.
Awesome it was indeed, to see in the sandy deep
The wild things out of their subterranean caverns leap,
Or up from the selfsame hollow places grow amain
Living arbutus bowers, in a nimbus of golden rain!
-
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12367
Lycotas-Ay, ay!
And thou art a happy fellow, Corydon,
To have seen by grace divine, e'er tremulous eld come on,
This age of ours! And tell, oh, tell me if by chance
Thou hadst a right near view of the godlike countenance;
And how did the dread one look ? What manner of garb
wore he?
I fain would know the aspect on earth of deity!
Corydon - Would I had gone less meanly clad! For then, mayhap,
I had not been balked of a noble sight by a sordid wrap
And a clumsy brooch! But to me, as I stood afar,
He carried, unless these eyes of mine deceivers are,
The part at once of the god of song and the god of war!
Translation of H. W. P.
DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS
IDYL OF THE ROSES
SP
PRING morning! and in all the saffron air,
The tingling freshness of a day to be!
The breeze that runs before the sun-steeds, ere
They kindle fire, appeared to summon me;
And I went forth by the prim garden beds
To taste that early freshness, and behold
The bending blades dew-frosted, and the heads
Of the tall plants impearled, and heavy-rolled
O'er spreading leaves, the sky-drops crystalline.
Here too were roses, as in Pæstum gay;
Dim through the morning mist I saw them shine,
Save where at intervals a blinding ray
Flashed from a gem that Sol would soon devour!
Verily, one knew not if the rosy Dawn
Borrowed her blushes from the rosy flower,
Or this from her; for that the two had on
The same warm color, the same dewy veil.
Yea, and why not? For flower alike and star
Live under Lady Venus, and exhale,
Mayhap, the self-same fragrance. But afar
The planet's breath is wafted and is spent,
The blossom sheds its fragrance at our side;
Yet still they wear the one habiliment
The Paphian goddess lent them, murex-dyed!
A moment more and the young buds were seen
Bursting their star-like sheathings. One was there
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
Who sported yet a fairy helm of green;
And one a crimson coronal did wear;
And one was like a stately pyramid
Tipped at the apex with a purple spire;
And one the foldings of her veil undid
From her fair head, as moved by the desire
To number her own petals. Quick, 'tis done!
The smiling casket opens, and we see
The crocus therein hidden from the sun
Dense-seeded. But another flower, ah me!
With flame-like hair afloat upon the breeze
Paled suddenly, of all her glory shorn.
"Alas for the untimely fate of these,
Who age the very hour wherein they're born,"
I cried. And even so, the chevelure
Of yon poor blossom dropped upon the mold,
Clothing it far and wide with color pure!
How can the same sunrising see unfold
And fade so many shapes of loveliness?
Ah cruel Nature, with thy boon of flowers
Too quick withdrawn! Ah youth, grim age doth press!
Ah life of roses, told in one day's hours!
The morning star beholds a birth divine
Whereof the evening star shall find no trace.
Think then upon the rose's endless line,
Since the one rose revisiteth her place
Never again! And gather, sweetest maid,
Gather young roses in the early dew
Of thine own years, remembering how they fade,
And how for thee the end is hastening too!
Translation of H. W. P.
A MOTHER'S EPITAPH
Æ
ONIA, mother, with thy mingled strain
Of blood from Normandy and Aquitaine,
Thine were the graces of the perfect wife!
The busy fingers the inviolate life,
Thine husband's trust, the empire of thy boys,
A gracious mien, a fund of quiet joys!
Thy long embrace among the peaceful dead
Make warm my father's tomb, as once his bed!
Translation of H. W. P.
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12369
CLAUDIUS CLAUDIANUS
THE BEREAVEMENT OF CERES
From the Rape of Proserpine>
A
LL in terror, in hope no more, as the mother of nestlings
Fears for her tender young, in the rowan sapling deserted,
Fears while she seeks their food, and wearies again to be
with them;
Trembling lest the wind may have smitten the nest from the
bough, or
Cruel man have slain, or the fang of the ravening serpent,—
So she came again to her lonesome dwelling unguarded.
Wide on their idle hinges yawned the doors, and, beholding
All the silent space of the empty hall, in her anguish,
Rent she her robes, and tore the bearded wheat from her tresses.
Never a tear nor a word had she, for the breath of her nostrils
Barely went and came, and she shivered in every member.
Then upon quaking feet, and closing the portal behind her,
Passed within, and on through the lorn and sorrowful chambers,
Found the loom with its trailing web and intricate skein, and
Read with a failing heart the woven story unfinished.
Vain that gracious labor now! and the insolent spider
Busily spinning among the threads his texture unholy!
Never a tear nor a moan; but she fell with kisses unnumbered
Upon the woven stuff, and the sob of her gathering passion
Choked with the useless thread: then pressed to her bosom
maternal,
As it had been the maid herself, the delicate shuttle
Smooth from her hand, and the fallen wool, and the virginal trifles
Of her delight; surveyed the seats where she loved to linger,
Leaned o'er the spotless couch, and touched the pillow forsaken.
Translation of H. W. P.
WHAT
XXI-774
INVOCATION TO VICTORY
From the Consulate of Stilicho'
HAT shouts of our nobles, in jubilant chorus
Went up to the hero, while over his head,
Inviolate Victory, bodied before us
Wide, wide in the ether, her pinions outspread!
O guardian Goddess of Rome in her splendor!
O radiant Palm-bearer in trophies arrayed,
Who only the spirit undaunted canst render,
Who healest the wounds that our foemen had made!
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
So
I know not thy rank in the heavenly legion,-
If thou shinest a star in the Dictæan crown,
Or art girt by the fires of the Leonine region,
Or bearest Ione's sceptre, or winnest renown
From the shield of Minerva, or soothest in slumber
The War-god, aweary when battles are o’er;
But come, all the prayers of thy chosen to number,
Oh, welcome to Latium! Leave us no more!
Translation of H. W. P.
CLAUDIUS RUTILIUS NUMATIANUS
PROLOGUE TO THE ITINERARIUM'
EADER, marvelest thou at one who early departing,
R
Missed the unspeakable boon granted the children of Rome?
Know there is time no more to the dwellers in Rome the
beloved,
Early and late no more, under her infinite charm!
Happy beyond compute the sons of mortals appointed
Unto that marvelous prize, birth on the consecrate soil!
Who to the rich estate of the heirs of Roman patricians
Add thy illustrious fame-City without a peer!
Happiest these, but following close in the order of blessing.
They who have come from afar, seeking a Latian home.
Wide to their pilgrim feet the Senate opens its portal,—
"Come all ye who are fit! Come and be aliens no more! "
sit with the mighty and share in the honors of Empire.
Share in their worship too, kneeling where all do adore,
Thrill with the State's great life, as aye the State and its æther,
Unto the uttermost Pole, thrills with the being of Jove.
Translation of H. W. P.
ANICIUS SEVERINUS BOËTHIUS
THE GOVERNMENT OF THE World
From the Consolation of Philosophy'
FRAMER of the jeweled sphere,
Who, firm on thy eternal throne,
Dost urge the swift-revolving year
The stars compel thy laws to own;-
The stars that hide their lesser light
When Luna with her horns full-grown
O
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
12371
Reflects her brother's glories bright,
Paling-she too - when he draws nigh,
In his great fires extinguished quite;
As Hesper up the evening sky
Leads the cold planets, but to fling
Their wonted leash aside, and fly
At Phoebus's bright awakening;-
Thou who dost veil in vapors chill
The season of the leaf-dropping
-
With its brief days, rekindling still
The fires of summer, making fleet
The lessening nights;-all do thy will;
The year obeys thee on thy seat;
The leaves that Boreas bore amain
Return once more with Zephyr sweet;
Arcturus tills the unsown grain,
And Sirius burns the waving gold;
The task thy ancient laws ordain
All do, the allotted station hold.
Man's work alone dost thou despise,
Nor deign his weakness to enfold
In changeless law. Else wherefore flies
Sleek Fortune's wheel so madly round?
The good man bears the penalties
Of yon bold sinner, who is found
Enthroned, exultant, apt to grind
His blameless victim to the ground!
Virtue is fain in caverns blind
Her light to hide; and just men know
The scourgings meet for baser kind.
Mendacious Fraud reserves no blow
For men like these, nor Perjury;
But when they will their might to show,
Then conquer they, with ease and glee,
The kings unnumbered tribes obey.
O Judge unknown, we cry to thee!
To our sad planet, turn, we pray!
Are we we men the meanest side
Of all thy great creation? Nay!
Though but the drift of Fortune's tide
Compel her wasteful floods to pause!
And, ruling heaven, rule beside
O'er quiet lands, by steadfast laws.
-
Translation of L. P. D.
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ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
THE HYMN OF PHILOSOPHY
From the Consolation of Philosophy'
NDYING Soul of this material ball,
Heaven-and-Earth-Maker!
Thou who first didst call
Time into being, and by thy behest
Movest all things, thyself alone at rest,
No outward power impelled thee thus to mold
In shape the fluid atoms manifold,
Only the immortal image, born within
Of perfect beauty! Wherefore thou hast been
Thine own fair model, and the things of sense
The image bear of thy magnificence!
Parts perfect in themselves, by Thy control,
Are newly wrought into a perfect whole;
The yoked elements obey thy hand:
Frost works with fire, water with barren sand,
So the dense continents are fast maintained,
And heaven's ethereal fire to earth restrained.
Thou dost the life of threefold nature tame,
To serve the parts of one harmonious frame,—
That soul of things constrained eternally
To trace thy image on the starry sky,
The greater and the lesser deeps to round,
And on thyself return. Thou too hast found
For us, thy lesser creatures of a day,
Wherewith thou sowest earth,- forms of a clay
So kindly-fragile naught can stay our flight
Backward, unto the source of all our light!
Grant, Father, yet, the undethroned mind!
A way unto the fount of truth to find,
And, sought so long, the Vision of thy Face!
Lighten our flesh! Terrestrial vapors chase,
And shine in all thy splendor! For thou art
The final Rest of every faithful heart,
The First, the Last! of the expatriate soul
Lord, Leader, Pathway, and Eternal Goal!
UN
-
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 12373 (#423) ##########################################
12373
PIERRE RONSARD
(1524-1585)
BY KATHARINE HILLARD
HERE is no more picturesque moment in the whole history of
France than that at which Pierre Ronsard was born. The
Gre
first quarter of the sixteenth century had just struck, and
Europe was waking to the new day of the Renaissance. Luther
had burned the Pope's bull at Wittenberg, and had introduced the
reformed worship there. Henry VIII. and Francis I. had met on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold; Michael Angelo
had finished his masterpieces in the Sistine
Chapel; Raphael, having painted the great-
est of all Madonnas, had been dead five
years; Titian was still holding the world
breathless with the triumphs of his brush;
Rabelais had just emerged from his mo-
nastic prison to begin life at the age of
forty; Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Earl of Sur-
rey, and their co-mates, were preparing the
way in England for the full choir of the
next half-century; and France, stimulated
on all sides by the advance of her neigh-
bors in literature and art, had set herself
to rival them. Since the appearance of the 'Roman de la Rose' in
1310, there had been little of note in French literature. The feeble
singers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, whose voices could
scarcely be heard through the constant din of war, made that poem
their great example; and it is hard to say whether the poverty of
their invention, or the religious allegory concealed beneath its senti-
mental platitudes, had had the greater power in preserving it so
long. Charles d'Orléans, François Villon, and Clément Marot, had
already sung the first chansons worthy of note since the 'Roman de
la Rose' began to reign; and the "gentil maistre Clément " was even
now sharing the captivity of his royal master at Pavia.
PIERRE RONSARD
Besides the usual causes that impede the production of great
poems, we must take into account the transitions and imperfect con-
dition of the French language at this time; the patronage of zealous
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PIERRE RONSARD
12374
but ignorant princes; and more than all, the fact that in the recent
revival of learning, studious minds grasped at everything. They
made no distinction between natural genius and acquired talents;
and believed the development of poetry to be as much a matter of
perseverance as the development of physics,- a thing to be worked.
at like a sum in arithmetic.
While, then, in France the learned were poring over classical dic-
tionaries, and occasionally giving evidence of progress by a neat copy
of Greek or Latin verses, the French language was suffering neglect.
Noble words and phrases used by the Troubadours had dropped out
altogether; the writers of each half-century had to be translated by
their successors before they could be understood. For the new music
there must be new strings to the lyre; and two young poets, Pierre
Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, undertook the audacious task of re-
constructing their native tongue.
Pierre Ronsard, to whose influence may be ascribed the 'Illustra-
tion de la Langue Française,' published by his friend Du Bellay, was
born on the 11th of September, 1524, at the Château de la Poissonière
(Vendômois). He was the fifth son of Louis Ronsard, maître d'hotel
to Francis I. His father, born of a noble Hungarian family, was
himself a scholar and a poet, who composed verses in both French
and Latin which received a tolerable amount of praise from his con-
temporaries. Till the age of nine, Pierre was brought up at home
under the direction of a tutor. When sent to the College of Navarre,
he was a bright and beautiful boy of ten; but the Regent there was
an uncommonly harsh master, under whose rule in six months the
child lost not only his color and his vivacity, but his taste for study.
His alarmed father gave up all thought of educating him for the law
or the church, and entered him in the service of the Duke of Orléans
as a page. Three years later, in 1537, when James V. of Scotland
returned to his own country with his first wife, Madeleine of France,
Ronsard went in their train to Edinburgh, where he spent two years;
and then, despite the King's efforts to detain him, returned to France
(spending six months in England on the way), and re-entered the
service of the Duke. His royal master sent his prodigy of a page
on all sorts of secret missions, -to Scotland, to Flanders, to Zealand,
to the Diet of Spires with Lazare de Baïf, to Piedmont with the
viceroy Du Bellay. He suffered many hardships, and even ship-
wreck; and finally a severe illness, which left him almost totally
deaf at the early age of sixteen. He lost his heart too about this
time (not so irremediable a loss, however, as his hearing), to a fair
bourgeoise of Blois, whom he chose to christen Cassandra.
She was
little more than a child; and he, though not seventeen, was already
an accomplished courtier, skilled in all manly exercises, and already
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a verse-maker. His deafness interfering with his chances at court,
he wished to devote himself to study. But his father, ambitious for
the future of his brilliant son, peremptorily forbade his apprentice-
ship to "le mestier des Muses. " During his travels, however, he had
learned to speak English, Italian, and German, while one of his com-
rades had taught him Latin.
When the elder Ronsard died, Pierre was left free to follow his
own inclinations. At eighteen, having already seen more of life than
most men, he retired with his friend Antoine de Baïf, then only six-
teen, to the College of Coqueret. Seven long years they passed in
this retreat, studying with the greatest ardor, and helping each other
along the thorny ways of learning.
At the college they were joined by Remi Belleau, afterwards an
enthusiastic disciple of Ronsard, and by Antoine Muret, his future
commentator. Here too came Joachim du Bellay, who eagerly em-
braced the literary theories of Ronsard, and published in 1549 the
result of their joint studies and speculations under the title of
'L'Illustration de la Langue Française. ' "Coloring their prejudices
as erudite scholars with all the illusions of youth and patriotism,"
says Sainte-Beuve in his admirable work on 'French Poetry in the
Sixteenth Century,' "they asserted that there was no such thing as
poetry in France, and promised themselves to create it all. " The
ideas of these youthful enthusiasts were set forth (in part) as follows:
"Languages are not like plants, strong or weak by chance: they depend
upon human volition. Consequently, if our language be more feeble than the
Greek or the Latin, it is the fault of our ancestors, who neglected to strengthen
and adorn it. Translations alone will never enrich a language. We need
to follow the example of the Romans, who imitated rather than translated the
best Greek authors, transforming them into their own likeness, devouring
their substance, and after digesting it thoroughly, converting it into nourish-
ment and blood. »
To this careful transportation of the classics, of Spanish and Ital-
ian, Ronsard added an audacious use of the words of his own tongue.
Where French failed him, he dressed up a Latin, Greek, or Italian
substitute. He advised what he called the provignement (literally
the layering of words, the term being taken from the gardener's
method of laying a shoot under ground to take root, without detach-
ing it from the parent stem); and from a recognized substantive, for
instance, would form a verb or an adjective to suit his need. More-
over, he borrowed right and left from every French patois he could
lay his hands upon; and in all the workshops of Paris he sought
among the artisans for words and phrases to give amplitude and
vigor to his verse. His genius melted down this heterogeneous mass
into a wonderfully mellifluous stream; and to us, in this polyglot age,
-
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PIERRE RONSARD
his verse presents fewer difficulties than it did, perhaps, to his con-
temporaries.
-
In 1549, after seven years' study of "le mestier des Muses," Ron-
sard was persuaded to appear in print for the first time; and to
publish his Epithalamium on the marriage of Antoine de Bourbon
with Jeanne de Navarre. His first book of 'Odes' came out in 1550;
and two years later, 'Amours,' - a collection of sonnets addressed to
the fair Cassandra. Meantime he was publishing more odes, of which
a fifth book appeared in 1553, accompanied with music fitted to the
songs and sonnets, and a commentary by Muret. Then came a book
of 'Hymnes,' followed in two years by a second, and by the last of
the 'Amours. ' Finally, in 1560, he brought out the first edition of
his collected works.
Never were poems received with such tempests of applause. In
vain the jovial curé of Meudon made fun of his neighbor; not even
the mighty laughter of Rabelais could drown the praise of princes.
The Toulouse Academy of Floral Games christened Ronsard "the
prince of poets"; and although he had not entered their lists as a
competitor, they not only crowned him with their usual golden wreath
of eglantine, but sent him also a massive silver statue of Minerva.
Queen Elizabeth presented a diamond of great price; and Marie
Stuart sent him from her English prison a buffet surmounted by a
silver Pegasus, standing on the summit of Parnassus, bearing this
inscription: "To Ronsard, the Apollo of the fountain of the Muses. "
Montaigne immortalized him in a single line; Tasso was proud
to read to him the first cantos of his Gerusalemme; and his works
were publicly read and expounded in the French schools of Flanders,
Poland, England, and other countries. Saddest and sweetest tribute
of all, the poet Chastelard would have no other consolation upon the
scaffold than Ronsard's 'Hymn to Death. '
The people shared the admiration of princes, and women burned
incense before the popular idol. Many damsels besides Cassandra
are celebrated in his charming verses; either by their real names, or
by the finer Callirrhoës and Astræas of the fashion of the day. The
nebulous clouds of adoration that surrounded him finally encompassed
that famous constellation, the "Pléiade," wherein he was still the
central star. Around him at a respectful distance revolved Dorat,
his old master; Jamyn, his pupil; Du Bellay and De Baïf, his fellow-
students; Jodelle and De Thiard: but it was only Ronsard whom the
whole world delighted to honor.
At the command of Charles IX. he undertook an epic poem; and
about a fortnight after the massacre of St. Bartholomew (August
24th, 1572) appeared all that was ever written of the 'Franciade,’-
four cantos of the destined twenty-four.
The delighted King loaded
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12377
him with new honors; bestowing upon him, besides two priories, the
abbeys of Bellozane and Croix-Val.
To Croix-Val Ronsard retired upon the death of his royal patron
in 1574. Gouty and prematurely old, he led a studious and pious life;
amusing himself by editing another edition of his complete works,
which appeared in 1584. So captious had grown his fastidious taste,
that he altered the sonnets and lyrics of his youth with a most un-
sparing hand, often much to the loss of their spontaneity and vigor;
"not considering," says Colletet, in his quaint old French, "that
although he was the father of his works, yet doth it not appertain
to sad and captious age to sit in judgment upon the strokes of gal-
lant youth. "
A singer to the last, he died at his priory of St. Cosme, Tours, on
December 27th, 1585, at the age of 61; and was quietly buried in the
choir of the priory church. Two months after his death, however,
his dear friend Galland, who had closed the poet's eyes, celebrated
his obsequies at the chapel of the College of Boncour. Henri III. ,
then King, sent his own musicians to sing the mass; Duperron, after-
wards bishop of Evreux and cardinal, pronounced the funeral oration,
and drew tears from the eyes of all present. The chapel was crowded
with the princes of the blood, the cardinals, the Parliament, and the
University of Paris. The next day memorial orations and verses
were recited in all the colleges of Paris, and volumes might be made
of the commemorative elegies and epitaphs.
But only fifteen years after these panegyrics filled the air, arose
the star of Malherbe, severest of his critics because so close a rival.
It is related that Racan, coming in one day,-when Malherbe was ill,
let us hope,- took up a volume of Ronsard with many verses erased.
"Posterity will quote the others as admired by Malherbe," said
Racan; whereupon the irritated censor seized a pen and scratched
out all the rest.
The wheel of Fortune turned again. Malherbe was as completely
forgotten as Ronsard. Corneille, Racine, and classic drama ruled the
day. Again the wheel went round; and in 1828 the reign of the
Romantic School began. Guizot, Ampère, Prosper Mérimée, Phila-
rète Chasles, Théophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, led the
acclaim for Ronsard; and once more all France rang with his praises.
Sainte-Beuve wrote his Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poésie
Française au 16e. Siècle' (Critical and Historical View of French
Poetry in the Sixteenth Century), followed by a volume of selections
which set the new school wild. Early editions commanded fabulous
prices; and a copy of 1609 was presented to Victor Hugo as the fittest
tribute to "the successor of the greatest lyric poet of France. "
It is easier to account for the fame of Ronsard than for its sudden
waning. His service to French speech is enormous. As a poet, he
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PIERRE RONSARD
worked much upon the same lines as did Rabelais in prose, allowing
for the humorous extravagance of the latter. Both borrowed from
all sources, and both developed the French vocabulary in every direc-
tion.
Nor were Ronsard's services to the art of versification less nota-
ble. To him belongs the honor of introducing the ode into French
poetry; that he also revived the epic is a doubtful matter for con-
gratulation. Sainte-Beuve claims as his invention a great variety
of new rhythms, and at least eight or ten new forms of strophes.
Indeed, France had to wait three hundred years for a worthy succes-
sor to him in the realm of lyric verse. Not until Victor Hugo took
up the fallen lyre do we find in French poetry any songs that for
exquisite melody, simplicity, and grace can rival his. He transplanted
some of the finest odes and sonnets of Anacreon, Theocritus, Horace,
Petrarch, and Bembo into his native tongue; but added to them such
fine and delicate touches of his own fancy that they seemed to bloom
anew as with engrafted flowers.
And he kept a kind and fatherly eye upon the younger poets
springing up around him. He taught them the value of careful work;
inspired them to write less and write better; and bade them remem-
ber that verses should be weighed, not counted, and that like dia-
monds, one fine gem was far more precious than a hundred mediocre
specimens.
Of all English poets Herrick most resembles Ronsard. But Her-
rick set out with the great advantage of finding his material ready to
his hand; for the noble English language was at the very acme of its
splendor. His mastery of rhythm is as great as Ronsard's, but his
poetic genius is of a lower order. Ronsard's imagination has a loftier
flight than Herrick's fancy; there is more dignity and depth in his
sweetness, a subtler pathos in his tenderness.
Both poets profess a like Epicurean philosophy: "Gather ye rose-
buds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying," sings Herrick; and Ron-
sard utters the same wisdom to Cassandra. This is the moral of many
a verse in both poets, it is true; but Ronsard's treatment of love is
more noble and dignified than that of the English singer. Although
touched occasionally by the worst taste of his time, Ronsard pre-
serves in nearly all his love poems a manliness and a delicacy that
enhance their richness. Perhaps the most celebrated of his verses
is the sonnet to Hélène de Surgères, maid of honor to Catherine de
Medici, a sonnet which Béranger has imitated and Thackeray para-
phrased:-
"When by the fire, grown old, with silvery hair,
You spin by candle-light with weary eyes,
Humming my songs you'll say, with still surprise,
'Ronsard once sang of me, when I was young and fair. '
## p. 12379 (#429) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12379
Then as your maidens hear the well-known sound,-
Though half asleep after the toils of day,-
Not one but wakes, and as she goes her way
Blesses your name, with praise immortal crowned.
I shall be dead and gone, a fleshless shade
Under Elysian bowers my head be laid;
While you, crouched o'er your fire, grown old and gray,
Sigh for my love, regret your past disdain.
Live now, nor wait for love to come again;
Gather the roses of your life to-day! "
Ronsard, like Chaucer, in spite of a courtier's training, had an
intense love of nature. The poet laureate of his age and country,
he was none the less an excellent gardener, well versed in all the
secrets of horticulture; and side by side with marriage odes to princes
and epistles to kings and queens, we find charming songs addressed
to the birds and insects and fountains of the country that he loved
even better than the court. And like Chaucer, again, he was capa-
ble of higher flights; and could comfort a dying poet with his 'Hymn
to Death,' or write verses full of a lofty stoicism,-like the stanzas
taken from one of the odes, which irresistibly suggest the "good
counsel" of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Katharine Hillard
SONNET
TO ANGELETTE
Η
ERE through this wood my saintly Angelette
Goes, making springtime blither with her song;
Here lost in smiling thought she strays along,
While on these flowers her little feet are set.
Here is the meadow and the gentle stream
That laughs in ripples by her hand caressed,
As loitering still, she gathers to her breast
The enameled flowers that o'er its wavelets dream.
Here, singing I behold her, there, in tears;
And here she smiles, and there my fancy hears
Her sweet discourse, with boundless blessings rife.
Here sits she down, and there I see her dance;
So with the shuttle of a vague romance,
Love weaves the warp and woof of all my life.
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
## p. 12380 (#430) ##########################################
12380
PIERRE RONSARD
HIS LADY'S TOMB
AⓇ
S IN the gardens, all through May, the rose,
Lovely and young and rich apparellèd,
Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,
When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;
Graces and Loves within her breast repose,
The woods are faint with the sweet odor shed,
Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead
The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose:
So this, the perfect beauty of our days,
When heaven and earth were vocal of her praise,
The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes:
And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb
Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,
That, dead as living, Rose may be with roses.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
ROSES
SEND you here a wreath of blossoms blown,
And woven flowers at sunset gathered.
Another dawn had seen them ruined, and shed
Loose leaves upon the grass at random strown.
By this, their sure example, be it known
That all your beauties, now in perfect flower,
Shall fade as these, and wither in an hour,
Flower-like, and brief of days, as the flower sown.
Ah, time is flying, lady-time is flying;
Nay, 'tis not time that flies but we that go,
Who in short space shall be in churchyard lying,
And of our loving parley none shall know,
Nor any man consider what we were:
Be therefore kind, my love, whiles thou art fair.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
TO CASSANDRA
"D
ARLING! look if that blushing rose,
That but this morning did unclose
Her crimson vestments to the sun,
Hath not quite lost in evening's air
## p. 12381 (#431) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12381
The fine folds of that vestment rare,
And that bright tinting like your own.
"Alas! even in this little space,
Dearest, we see o'er all the place
Her scattered beauties strown!
O stepdame Nature! stern and hard,
That could not such a flower have spared
From morn till eve along!
"Then, darling, hear me while I sing!
Enjoy the verdure of your spring,
The sweets of youth's short hour;
Gather the blossoms while ye may,
For youth is gone like yesterday,
And beauty like that flower! "
SONG
TO MARIE
TH
HE spring hath not so many flowers;
The autumn, grapes within its bowers;
The summer, heats that make men pale;
The winter, stores of icy hail;
Nor fishes hath the boundless sea,
Nor harvests in fair Beau there be;
Nor Brittany, unnumbered sands,
Nor fountains have Auvergne's broad lands;
Nor hath so many stars the night,
Nor the wide woodland branches light,-
As hath my heart of heavy pains,
Born of my mistress's disdains.
WHY
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
―
A MADRIGAL
TO ASTREA
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
those engraven agates dost thou wear,
Rich rubies, and the flash of diamonds bright?
Thy beauty is enough to make thee fair,-
Beauty that love endows with its own light.
## p. 12382 (#432) ##########################################
12382
PIERRE RONSARD
Then hide that pearl, born of the Orient sea:
Thy grace alone should ornament thy hand;
Thy gems but serve to make us understand
They take their splendor and their worth from thee.
'Tis thy bright eyes that make thy diamonds shine,
And not the gems that make thee more divine.
Thou work'st thy miracles, my lady fair,
With or without thy jewels; all the same,
I own thy sovranty: now ice, now flame,—
As love and hatred drive me to despair,—
I die with rapture, or I writhe in shame,
Faint with my grief, or seem to tread on air.
NOT
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
GOOD COUNSEL
OT to rejoice too much at Fortune's smile
Nor at her frown despair,—
This makes man happy, and he lives meanwhile
Without or fear or care.
Like Time himself, borne by his sweeping wings,
All things else pass away;
And fifty sudden summers and sweet springs
Flit by us like a day.
Cities and forts and kingdoms perish all
Before Time's mighty breath;
And new ones spring to life, like them to fall,
And crumble into death.
Therefore let no man cherish the vain thought
Of an immortal name,
Seeing how Time itself doth come to naught,
And he shall fare the same.
Arm thyself then with proud philosophy
Against the blows of fate;
And with a soul courageous, firm, and free
The storms of life await.
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
## p. 12383 (#433) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12383
RONSARD TO HIS MISTRESS
SON
OME winter night, shut snugly in
Beside the fagot in the hall,
I think I see you sit and spin,
Surrounded by your maidens all.
Old tales are told, old songs are sung,
Old days come back to memory:
You say,
"When I was fair and young,
A poet sang of me! »
There's not a maiden in your hall,
Though tired and sleepy ever so,
But wakes as you my name recall,
And longs the history to know.
And as the piteous tale is said
Of lady cold and lover true,
Each, musing, carries it to bed,
And sighs and envies you!
"Our lady's old and feeble now,"
They'll say; "she once was fresh and fair,
And yet she spurned her lover's vow,
And heartless left him to despair:
The lover lies in silent earth,
No kindly mate the lady cheers;
She sits beside a lonely hearth,
With threescore and ten years! "
Ah! dreary thoughts and dreams are those,-
But wherefore yield me to despair,
While yet the poet's bosom glows,
While yet the dame is peerless fair!
Sweet lady mine! while yet 'tis time,
Requite my passion and my truth;
And gather in their blushing prime
The roses of your youth!
Paraphrased by Thackeray.
## p. 12384 (#434) ##########################################
12384
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(1858-)
HEODORE ROOSEVELT is an example of a type of American
justifying the experiment of democratic government on a
large scale. He is a man of good family and private for-
tune, well educated and of high character, who has devoted his
abilities and energies to practical politics, and has risen steadily as a
public servant by reason of his probity, intelligence, and force. His
keen interest in his own country has led him to make frequent hunt-
ing trips in the West, where he owns a ranch and has made himself
an authority on hunting; and he has studied
the conditions of that civilization, and then
written books concerning it. This interest
in the West has extended to its history, and
has produced a capital historical survey of
the stirring dramatic development of the
Western States: much of the material upon
which the account is based being drawn
fresh from government archives, and in-
volving painstaking independent labor. Mr.
Roosevelt's other writings-historical, bio-
graphical, or of the lighter essay sort-are
robustly American in spirit, and enjoyable
in point of style. He is a vigorous person-
ality, whether in life or literature.
Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York city, on October 27th,
1858; and is the son of a successful business man and philanthropist
of the same name, well known and honored in that city. The son's
uncle was R. B. Roosevelt, also distinguished as politician and author.
Theodore the younger was educated at Harvard, being graduated in
1880. He at once interested himself in local politics; and became
a New York State Assemblyman 1882-4. The latter year he was a
member of the National Republican Convention; in 1886 a Republican
candidate for mayor of New York; in 1889 he was made a United
States Civil Service Commissioner, serving until 1895, when he be-
came president of the New York Board of Police Commissioners,—
holding this position until 1897, when he accepted the post of Assist-
ant Secretary of the Navy.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
## p. 12385 (#435) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12385
Mr. Roosevelt began to publish books as a young man of twenty-
five. His Hunting Trips of a Ranchman' appeared in 1883; other
books in the order of their publication are History of the Naval
War of 1812 (1885), the lives of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and
of Gouverneur Morris (1888) in the American Statesmen Series,'
'Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail' (1888), Essays on Practical Pol-
itics (1888), The Winning of the West' (fourth volume 1895), His-
tory of New York City' (1891), and The Wilderness Hunter' (1893).
This is a considerable literary baggage for so young a writer. His
papers descriptive of his hunting and camp life are very readable;
but Mr. Roosevelt's most important work has been the presentation
of different phases of the American historical development. His
studies on the naval war and the New York municipality are done
in the true spirit of scholarly investigation. Most comprehensive and
valuable of all is his The Winning of the West'; in which he tells
the story with admirable freshness, grasp, and a sense of the drama
underlying the evolution of the Western States. His taste for and
experience in the adventurous overcoming of material difficulties,
and the rough-and-ready life of the open, have led him to select sym-
pathetically a fine subject, which he has treated in a way to re-create
the past, and make this series very acceptable for its clear, vivid
sketches of pioneer conditions out of which the West has sprung.
What interests Mr. Roosevelt, here and in his biographies, is the
development of American personalities and of the American idea
from all manner of untoward environment.
―
XXI-775
(
Mr. Roosevelt, because of his stalwart independence and aggressive
honesty in political life, has become a hero with those who are striv-
ing for the purification of American politics. He has been a strong
force for good; and his books reflect these same qualities of vigorous
thought and worthy ideals. His sturdy Americanism is to be felt
alike in his acts and words.
THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST
From The Winning of the West. ' Copyright 1889, by G. P. Putman's Sons
THE
HE Wyandots, and the Algonquins who surrounded them, dwelt
in a region of sunless, tangled forests; and all the wars we
waged for the possession of the country between the Alle-
ghanies and the Mississippi were carried on in the never-ending
stretches of gloomy woodland. It was not an open forest. The
underbrush grew, dense and rank, between the boles of the tall
## p. 12386 (#436) ##########################################
12386
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
trees, making a cover so thick that it was in many places impen-
etrable, so thick that it nowhere gave a chance for human eye
to see even as far as a bow could carry. No horse could penetrate
it save by following the game trails or paths chopped with the
axe; and a stranger venturing a hundred yards from a beaten.
road would be so helplessly lost that he could not, except by the
merest chance, even find his way back to the spot he had just
left. Here and there it was broken by a rare hillside glade, or
by a meadow in a stream valley; but elsewhere a man might
travel for weeks as if in a perpetual twilight, never once able
to see the sun through the interlacing twigs that formed a darl
canopy above his head.
This dense forest was to the Indians a home in which they
had lived from childhood, and where they were as much at ease
as a farmer on his own acres. To their keen eyes, trained for
generations to more than a wild beast's watchfulness, the wilder-
ness was an open book: nothing at rest or in motion escaped
them. They had begun to track game as soon as they could
walk; a scrape on a tree trunk, a bruised leaf, a faint indenta-
tion of the soil, which the eye of no white man could see,- all
told them a tale as plainly as if it had been shouted in their
ears. With moccasined feet they trod among brittle twigs, dried.
leaves, and dead branches, as silently as the cougar; and they
equaled this great wood-cat in stealth, and far surpassed it in
cunning and ferocity. They could no more get lost in the
trackless wilderness than a civilized man could get lost on a
highway. Moreover, no knight of the Middle Ages was so surely
protected by his armor as they were by their skill in hiding: the
whole forest was to the whites one vast ambush, and to them a
sure and ever-present shield. Every tree trunk was a breastwork
ready prepared for battle; every bush, every moss-covered bowl-
der, was a defense against assault, from behind which, themselves
unseen, they watched with fierce derision the movements of their
clumsy white enemy. Lurking, skulking, traveling with noiseless
rapidity, they left a trail that only a master in woodcraft could
follow; while on the other hand they could dog a white man's
footsteps as a hound runs a fox. Their silence, their cunning
and stealth, their terrible prowess and merciless cruelty, makes it
no figure of speech to call them the tigers of the human race.
Unlike the southern Indians, the villages of the northwestern
tribes were usually far from the frontier. Tireless, and careless
## p. 12387 (#437) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12387
of all hardship, they came silently out of unknown forests, robbed
and murdered, and then disappeared again into the fathomless
depths of the woods. Half the terror they caused was due to
the extreme difficulty of following them, and the absolute impos-
sibility of forecasting their attacks. Without warning, and un-
seen until the moment they dealt the death stroke, they emerged
from their forest fastnesses, the horror they caused being height-
ened no less by the mystery that shrouded them than by the
dreadful nature of their ravages. Wrapped in the mantle of the
unknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendish
cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils and not men;
no one could say with certainty whence they came, nor of what
tribe they were; and when they had finished their dreadful work,
they retired into a wilderness that closed over their trail, as the
waves of the ocean close in the wake of a ship.
They were trained to the use of arms from their youth up;
and war and hunting were their two chief occupations, the busi-
ness as well as the pleasure of their lives. They were not as
skillful as the white hunters with the rifle,—though more so than
the average regular soldier,-nor could they equal the frontiers-
man in feats of physical prowess, such as boxing and wrestling;
but their superior endurance, and the ease with which they stood
fatigue and exposure, made amends for this. A white might out-
run them for eight or ten miles; but on a long journey they
could tire out any man, and any beast except a wolf. Like
most barbarians they were fickle and inconstant,-not to be
relied on for pushing through a long campaign; and after a
great victory apt to go off to their homes, because each man.
desired to secure his own plunder and tell his own tale of glory.
They are often spoken of as undisciplined; but in reality their
discipline in the battle itself was very high. They attacked,
retreated, rallied or repelled a charge, at the signal of com-
mand; and they were able to fight in open order in thick covers
without losing touch of each other-a feat that no European regi-
ment was then able to perform.
On their own ground they were far more formidable than
the best European troops. The British grenadiers throughout
the eighteenth century showed themselves superior, in the actual
shock of battle, to any infantry of continental Europe; if they
ever met an overmatch, it was when pitted against the Scotch
highlanders. Yet both grenadier and highlander, the heroes of
## p. 12388 (#438) ##########################################
12388
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Minden, the heirs to the glory of Marlborough's campaigns, as
well as the sinewy soldiers who shared in the charges of Preston-
pans and Culloden, proved helpless when led against the dark
tribesmen of the forest. On the march they could not be trusted
thirty yards from the column without getting lost in the woods,-
the mountain training of the highlanders apparently standing
them in no stead whatever,- and were only able to get around
at all when convoyed by backwoodsmen. In fight they fared
even worse. The British regulars at Braddock's battle, and the
highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, suffered the same
fate. Both battles were fair fights,- neither was a surprise; yet
the stubborn valor of the red-coated grenadier and the headlong
courage of the kilted Scot proved of less than no avail. Not
only were they utterly routed and destroyed in each case by an
inferior force of Indians (the French taking little part in the
conflict), but they were able to make no effective resistance
whatever; it is to this day doubtful whether these superb regu-
lars were able, in the battles where they were destroyed, to so
much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own men who
fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the only
troops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but
a less degree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet,
by a clever stratagem, gained the victory over an enemy inferior
in numbers to himself; but only after a two-days' struggle in
which he suffered a fourfold greater loss than he inflicted.
When hemmed in so that they had no hope of escape, the
Indians fought to the death: but when a way of retreat was
open, they would not stand cutting like British, French, or Amer-
ican regulars; and so, though with a nearly equal force, would
retire if they were suffering heavily, even if they were causing
their foes to suffer still more. This was not due to lack of
courage, it was their system; for they were few in numbers, and
they did not believe in losing their men. The Wyandots were
exceptions to this rule, for with them it was a point of honor
not to yield; and so they were of all the tribes the most dan-
gerous in an actual pitched battle.
But making the attack, as they usually did, with the expecta-
tion of success, all were equally dangerous. If their foes were
clustered together in a huddle, they attacked them without hesi-
tation,- no matter what the difference in numbers,—and shot
them down as if they had been elk or buffalo; they themselves
__________
## p. 12389 (#439) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12389
being almost absolutely safe from harm, as they flitted from
cover to cover. It was this capacity for hiding, or taking advan-
tage of cover, that gave them their great superiority; and it is
because of this that the wood tribes were so much more formi-
dable foes in actual battle than the horse Indians of the plains
afterwards proved themselves. In dense woodland, a body of
regular soldiers are almost as useless against Indians as they
would be if at night they had to fight foes who could see in the
dark: it needs special and long-continued training to fit them
in any degree for wood-fighting against such foes. But on the
plains, the white hunter's skill with the rifle and his cool reso-
lution give him an immense advantage: a few determined men
can withstand a host of Indians in the open, although helpless
if they meet them in thick cover; and our defeats by the Sioux
and other plains tribes have generally taken the form of a small
force being overwhelmed by a large one.
Not only were the Indians very terrible in battle, but they
were cruel beyond all belief in victory; and the gloomy annals
of border warfare are stained with their darkest hues, because
it was a war in which helpless women and children suffered
the same hideous fate that so often befell their husbands and
fathers. It was a war waged by savages against armed settlers, .
whose families followed them into the wilderness. Such a war
is inevitably bloody and cruel; but the inhuman love of cruelty
for cruelty's sake, which marks the red Indian above all other
savages, rendered these wars more terrible than any others.
For the hideous, unnamable, unthinkable tortures practiced by
the red men on their captured foes, and on their foes' tender
women and helpless children, were such as we read of in no
other struggle; hardly even in the revolting pages that tell the
deeds of the Holy Inquisition. It was inevitable - indeed it was
in many instances proper-that such deeds should awake in the
breasts of the whites the grimmest, wildest spirit of revenge and
hatred.
The history of the border wars, both in the ways they were
begun and in the ways they were waged, makes a long tale of
injuries inflicted, suffered, and mercilessly revenged. It could
not be otherwise when brutal, reckless, lawless borderers, despis-
ing all men not of their own color, were thrown in contact with
savages who esteemed cruelty and treachery as the highest of
virtues, and rapine and murder as the worthiest of pursuits.
## p. 12390 (#440) ##########################################
12390
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Moreover, it was sadly inevitable that the law-abiding borderer
as well as the white ruffian, the peaceful Indian as well as the
painted marauder, should be plunged into the struggle to suffer
the punishment that should only have fallen on their evil-minded
fellows.
BACKWOODSMEN AND OTHER EARLY TYPES
From The Winning of the West. ' Copyright 1889, by G. P. Putnam's Sons
THE
HE first duty of the backwoodsmen who thus conquered the
West was to institute civil government. Their efforts to
overcome and beat back the Indians went hand in hand
with their efforts to introduce law and order in the primitive
communities they founded; and exactly as they relied purely on
themselves in withstanding outside foes, so they likewise built
up their social life and their first systems of government with
reference simply to their special needs, and without any outside
help or direction. The whole character of the westward move-
ment the methods of warfare, of settlement, and of government
were determined by the extreme and defiant individualism of
the backwoodsmen, their inborn independence and self-reliance,
and their intensely democratic spirit. The West was won and
settled by a number of groups of men, all acting independ-
ently of one another, but with a common object, and at about
the same time.
