Winter in the Alps
Winter in the Alps
Original Text
Flowers of France: The Renaissance Period, from Ronsard to Saint-Amant, Representative Poems of the Sixteenth Century, trans. John Payne (London: Villon Society, 1907): 243-44.
1Yon particles of fire that glitter on the snow.
2Yon glimmering sparks of gold, of crystal and of blue,
3Wherewith the sunlight dyes, in many an Orient hue,
4The Winter's tresses white, wind-fluttered to and fro,
5Yon ermine, that the hills to Heaven's bounties owe,
6Yon smooth pellucid floor of very argent new
7And this clear air and pure, unto my sense and view
8So sweet are that mine eyes thereat for rapture glow.
9This season pleaseth me; I love its wholesome cold;
10Its robes of candour pure and innocence enfold
11And cover, in some sort, the crimes of this our earth.
12Wherefore with favouring eyes Jove looketh on this land:
13His anger spareth it, nor ever thunder-birth,
14To desolate its days, departed from his hand.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
Data entry: Shraine Leung
Payne, John:
Winter in the Alps
is a translation of
Girard, Sieur de Saint-Amant, Saint-Amant:
L'Hyver des Alpes
RPO Edition
2012
Special Copyright
Saint Amant L'Hyver des Alpes