Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses

Chapter 33: “Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose....”

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About This Book

A collection of verse that shifts between brisk depictions of modern life—motor races and city heat—and intimate lyrical sonnets exploring love, memory, and devotional longing. Classical and medieval references recur alongside pagan pastoral fantasies that imagine escape to woodland Hesperides, while formal experiments include songs, sonnets, ballades, rondeaux and a pantoum. A seasonal sequence maps moods across spring to winter, and a concluding suite treats mortality through elegy and dark humor. The poems balance energetic narrative scenes with reflective, sometimes elegiac meditations on desire, nature, and death.

“Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose....”

After Ronsard.

COME, sweet, away! Come see the rose,

Now that the day draws near its close,

See whether it be faded grown—

Whether at evening fall away

Those leaves that opened to the day,

Or dies their blush, so like thine own.

Thou seest, dear love, its beauties pass,

Its wasted petals fall, alas!,

In one short hour. It may not bide.

Unkind in truth is Mother Earth

Since dawn gives such a flower its birth

And Death draws nigh at eventide.

So, sweet my darling, hear my voice,

I bid thee, in thy youth, rejoice!

Before thy fragile petals close

Gather thy blossoms whilst thou may,

With time they fall and fade away

As droops at night the withered rose.