A La Forest de Gastine
I write stretched in your verdurous shade,
Gâtine, dedicatory
Verses, as Greek poets made
Their songs to Arcady.
Loved forest, these lines are sent on
Lest you lack celebration
In days when I am dead and gone.
New times, and other nations
Shall know this leafage of Content
That shields Care off, a whole
Forest the Muses’ instrument
Where, book in hand, I stroll
Lost in those old mythologies
That – lustful, beautiful –
Glimmer through your green silences.
Be held inviolable;
Rest happy among the woods of France,
Numinous, sacred yet
To Muses whom Time and Mischance
Cruelly disinherit;
Flourish, dim, vast memorial
That Ronsard celebrated,
Whatever shrines of Europe fall,
Never deconsecrated.
Translated by Michael Riviere
Page(s) 77
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