On An Old Roundel

TRANSLATED BY D. C. ROSSETTI FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON.

I.

DEATH, from thy rigour a voice appealed, And men still hear what the sweet cry saith, Crying aloud in thine ears fast sealed, Death.

As a voice in a vision that vanisheth, Through the grave’s gate barred and the portal steeled The sound of the wail of it travelleth.

Wailing aloud from a heart unhealed, It woke response of melodious breath From lips now too by thy kiss congealed, Death.

II.

Ages ago, from the lips of a sad glad poet Whose soul was a wild dove lost in the whirling snow, The soft keen plaint of his pain took voice to show it Ages ago.

So clear, so deep, the divine drear accents flow, No soul that listens may choose but thrill to know it, Pierced and wrung by the passionate music’s throe.

For us there murmurs a nearer voice below it, Known once of ears that never again shall know, Now mute as the mouth which felt death’s wave o’erflow it Ages ago.

A LANDSCAPE BY COURBET.

LOW lies the mere beneath the moorside, still And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill Low lies the mere.

The wind speaks only summer: eye nor ear Sees aught at all of dark, hears aught of shrill, From sound or shadow felt or fancied here.

Strange, as we praise the dead man’s might and skill, Strange that harsh thoughts should make such heavy cheer, While, clothed with peace by heaven’s most gentle will, Low lies the mere.

A FLOWER-PIECE BY FANTIN.

HEART’S ease or pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart’s ease.

Surely by glad and divine degrees The heart impelling the hand that wrought Wrought comfort here for a soul’s disease.

Deep flowers, with lustre and darkness fraught, From glass that gleams as the chill still seas Lean and lend for a heart distraught Heart’s ease.

A NIGHT-PIECE BY MILLET.

WIND and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking Mirth of moonlight where the storm leaves free Heaven awhile, for all the wrath of waking Wind and sea.

Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee, Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud’s o’ertaking Fast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.

One blown sail beneath her, hardly making Forth, wild-winged for harbourage yet to be, Strives and leaps and pants beneath the breaking Wind and sea.