Tu logeois l'autre jour pleine de majesté.
These "Sonnets for Hélène" should be common knowledge: they are (with Du Bellay's) the evident original upon which the author of Shakespeare's Sonnets modelled his work: they are the late and careful effort of Ronsard's somewhat spendthrift genius.
Here are two of them. One, the second, most famous, the other, the first, hardly known: both are admirable.
It is the perfection of their sound which gives them their peculiar quality. The very first lines lead off with a completed harmony: it is as thoroughly a winter night as that in Shakespeare's song, but it is more solemn and, as it were, more "built of stone...." "La Lune Ocieuse, tourne si lentement son char tout à l'entour," is like a sleeping statue of marble.
To this character, the second adds a vivid interest of emotion which has given it its special fame. Even the populace have come to hear of this sonnet, and it is sung to a lovely tune. It has also what often leads to permanent reputation in verse, a great simplicity of form. The Sextet is well divided from the Octave, the climax is clearly underlined. Ronsard was often (to his hurt) too scholarly to achieve simplicity: when, under the clear influence of some sharp passion or gaiety he did achieve it, then he wrote the lines that will always remain:
A fin qu'à tout jamais de siècle en siècle vive,
La Parfaicte amitié que Ronsard la portait.
THE "SONNETS FOR HÉLÈNE."