Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585)

Translated by Robert, Earl of Lytton

HERE is the wood that freshened to her song;

See here, the flowers that keep her footprints yet;

Where, all alone, my saintly Angelette

Went wandering, with her maiden thoughts, along.

Here is the little rivulet where she stopp’d;

And here the greenness of the grass shows where

She lingered through it, searching here and there

Those daisies dear, which in her breast she dropp’d.

Here did she sing, and here she wept, and here

Her smile came back; and here I seem to hear

Those faint half-words with which my thoughts are rife;

Here did she sit; here, childlike, did she dance,

To some vague impulse of her own romance—

Ah, love, on all these thoughts, winds out my life!