On His Lady’s Waking
Ronsard, 1550
My lady woke upon a morning fair,
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.
Even such a bosom, and so fair it was,
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.