Flowers of France; The Renaissance Period, from Ronsard to Saint-Amant, Representative Poems of the Sixteenth Century

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SONNET TO SLEEP. Sleep, father thou of dreams and sire of sweet repose, Now that the Night, with its vast cloak of sable shade, Hath o'er the air serene a humid covert laid, Come, long-desired Sleep, and these mine eyelids close. Thine absence still prolongs, for languishment, my throes, Making me feel yet more my sufferance unallayed. Come, soothe it; let it be of thee less poignant made; With some delusion sweet come mystify my woes. Already Silence mute leads on a squadron light Of ghosts, that dancing fare beneath the blank blind Night. Thou only me disdain'st, thy devotee sincere. Come, longed-for Sleep, and with thy wings my head surround; And of my faithful hands for thee a wreath shall wound Of thy loved nightshade be and of thy poppies dear. SEXTINE. When Phoebus sweateth all the livelong day, I wearying go in torments and despites; And under Phoebe's sway, the languorous nights Are nought for me but sorrow without stay. So, for the love of her my lady fair, I dying go in languishment fore'er. Ah, woe is me! I must the hour fore'er Have in remembrance and the fatal day, When by the eyes I ta'en was of the fair; For nought since then I've gotten but despites, Which have of pleasance robbed me and of stay, Of gladsome days and of reposeful nights. You, happy lovers, fain would have the nights, For prolongation of your joys, fore'er, With their obscurity, endure and stay: I only, if aught please me, tis the day, In hope to feed, after my long despites, Mine eyes upon the beauties of my fair. But, the sun-eyes encountering of the fair, Bedazzled, I into the darkling nights Of my despair withdraw and the despites Of my sad thought, that travaileth fore'er And at each moment of the night and day, Within my reasoning spirit maketh stay. Alack! I cannot f...