Thou hast not encountered, Master, in the Paradise of Poets,
Messieurs Malherbe, De Balzac, and Boileau-- Boileau who spoke of
thee as Ce poete orgueilleux trebuche de si haut!

These gallant gentlemen, I make no doubt, are happy after their own
fashion, backbiting each other and thee in the Paradise of Critics.
In their time they wrought thee much evil, grumbling that thou
wrotest in Greek and Latin (of which tongues certain of them had but
little skill), and blaming thy many lyric melodies and the free flow
of thy lines. What said M. de Balzac to M. Chapelain? "M. de
Malherbe, M. de Grasse, and yourself must be very little poets, if
Ronsard be a great one." Time has brought in his revenges, and
Messieurs Chapelain and De Grasse are as well forgotten as thou art
well remembered. Men could not always be deaf to thy sweet old
songs, nor blind to the beauty of thy roses and thy loves. When
they took the wax out of their ears that M. Boileau had given them
lest they should hear the singing of thy Sirens, then they were deaf
no longer, then they heard the old deaf poet singing and made answer
to his lays. Hast thou not heard these sounds? have they not
reached thee, the voices and the lyres of Theophile Gautier and
Alfred de Musset? Methinks thou hast marked them, and been glad
that the old notes were ringing again and the old French lyric
measures tripping to thine ancient harmonies, echoing and replying
to the Muses of Horace and Catullus. Returning to Nature, poets
returned to thee. Thy monument has perished, but not thy music, and
the Prince of Poets has returned to his own again in a glorious
Restoration.

Through the dust and smoke of ages, and through the centuries of
wars we strain our eyes and try to gain a glimpse of thee, Master,