Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.
On His Ladys WakingPierre de Ronsard (15241585)
Translated by Andrew Lang
M
What time Apollo’s chariot takes the skies,
And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes
His empty quiver, Love was standing there:
I saw two apples that her breast doth bear,
None such the close of the Hesperides
Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these,
Nor she that had of nursling Mars the care.
Pure as the perfect work of Phidias,
That sad Andromeda’s discomfiture
Left bare, when Perseus passed her on a day,
And pale as Death for fear of death she lay,
With breast as marble cold, as marble pure.