THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE"

even naïf. But every word is chosen, and it is especially noteworthy to discover so early that restraint in epithet which is the charm but also the danger of what French style has since become. Of this there are two examples here: the eleventh line and the last, which rhymes with it. To contrast slate with marble would be impossible prose save for the exact adjective "fine," which puts you at once into Anjou. The last line, in spite of its exquisite murmur, would be grotesque if the "air marin" were meant for the sea-shore. Coming as it does after the suggestions of the Octave it gives you suddenly sea-faring: Ulysses, Jason, his own voyages, the long way to Rome, which he knew; and in the "douceur Angevine" you have for a final foil to such wanderings, not only in the meaning of the words, but in their very sound, the hearth and the return.

THE SONNET "HEUREUX QUI COMME ULYSSE”

Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage

Ou comme cestuy là qui conquit la Toison
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,

Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son age!
Quand revoirai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée: et en quelle saison
Revoirai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,

Qui m'est une province, et beaucoup d'avantage?

Plus me plaist le sejour qu'ont basty mes aieux
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux:
Plus que le mabre dur me plaist l'ardoise fine,

Plus mon Loyre gaulois que le Tybre Latin,
Plus mon petit Lyré que le Mont Palatin,
Et plus que l'air marin la doulceur Angevine.

THE WINNOWER'S HYMN TO THE

WINDS.