Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, with Other Poems

by Unknown

DREAMS.

He spake not truth, however wise, who said
That happy, and that hapless men in sleep
Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep
As countless, careless, races of the dead.
Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,
And one beholds the faces that he sighs
In vain to bring before his daylit eyes,
And waking, he remembers on his bed;

And one with fainting heart and feeble hand
Fights a dim battle in a doubtful land,
Where strength and courage were of no avail;
And one is borne on fairy breezes far
To the bright harbours of a golden star
Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.

FAIRY LAND.

In light of sunrise and sunsetting,
The long days lingered, in forgetting
That ever passion, keen to hold
What may not tarry, was of old,
In lands beyond the weary wold;
Beyond the bitter stream whose flood
Runs red waist-high with slain men’s blood.
Was beauty once a thing that died?
Was pleasure never satisfied?
Was rest still broken by the vain
Desire of action, bringing pain,
To die in languid rest again?
All this was quite forgotten there,
Where never winter chilled the year,
Nor spring brought promise unfulfilled,
Nor, with the eager summer killed,
The languid days drooped autumnwards.
So magical a season guards
The constant prime of a cool June;
So slumbrous is the river’s tune,
That knows no thunder of heavy rains,
Nor ever in the summer wanes,
Like waters of the summer time
In lands far from the Fairy clime.

Yea, there the Fairy maids are kind,
With nothing of the changeful mind
Of maidens in the days that were;
And if no laughter fills the air
With sound of silver murmurings,
And if no prayer of passion brings
A love nigh dead to life again,
Yet sighs more subtly sweet remain,
And smiles that never satiate,
And loves that fear scarce any fate.
Alas, no words can bring the bloom
Of Fairy Land; the faint perfume,
The sweet low light, the magic air,
To eyes of who has not been there:
Alas, no words, nor any spell
Can lull the eyes that know too well,
The lost fair world of Fairy Land.

Ah, would that I had never been
The lover of the Fairy Queen!
Or would that through the sleepy town,
The grey old place of Ercildoune,
And all along the little street,
The soft fall of the white deer’s feet
Came, with the mystical command
That I must back to Fairy Land!

TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS.

‘Les Sirènes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles compagnes de Proserpine, qu’elles estoient toujours ensemble. Esmues du juste deuil de la perte de leur chère compagne, et enuyées jusques au desespoir, elles s’arrestèrent à la mer Sicilienne, où par leurs chants elles attiroient les navigans, mais l’unique fin de la volupé de leur musique est la Mort.’—Pontus de Tyard. 1570.

I.