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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

His Lady’s Tomb

By Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

Translation of Andrew Lang

AS 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.