La belle Rose du Printemps,
Aubert, admoneste les hommes
Passer joyeusement le temps,
Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes,
Esbattre la fleur de nos ans.

In the same mood, looking far down the future, thou sangest of thy lady's age,
the most sad, the most beautiful of thy sad and beautiful lays; for if thy
bees gathered much honey 't was somewhat bitter to taste, as that of the
Sardinian yews. How clearly we see the great hall, the grey lady spinning and
humming among her drowsy maids, and how they waken at the word, and she sees
her spring in their eyes, and they forecast their winter in her face, when she
murmurs ''Twas Ronsard sang of me.'

Winter, and summer, and spring, how swiftly they pass, and how early time
brought thee his sorrows, and grief cast her dust upon thy head.

Adieu ma Lyre, adieu fillettes,
Jadis mes douces amourettes,
Adieu, je sens venir ma fin,
Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse
Ne m'accompagne en la vieillesse,
Que le feu, le lict et le vin.

Wine, and a soft bed, and a bright fire: to this trinity of poor pleasures we
come soon, if, indeed, wine be left to us. Poetry herself deserts us; is it
not said that Bacchus never forgives a renegade? and most of us turn recreants
to Bacchus. Even the bright fire, I fear, was not always there to warm thine
old blood, Master, or, if fire there were, the wood was not bought with thy
book-seller's money. When autumn was drawing in during thine early old age, in