Would but love my vows befriend, To my warm embraces send That sweet fair one, Brightest, dear one, Then my joy might equal thine. Hark! hark! Thou merry lark! Reckless thou how I may pine; May be my care, True shall bide this heart of mine. Hark! hark! Thou merry lark! Reckless thou what griefs are mine; Come, relieve my heart's distress, Though in truth the pain is less, That she frown, Than if unknown She for whom I ceaseless pine. Hark! hark! Thou merry lark! Reckless thou how I may pine. FRAIGNE. THIS poet belongs to the 14th century:-See Laborde, from whom the following specimen is taken. Et ou vas tu, petit soupir, Dieu te conduye a ton desir, Et ou vas tu, petit soupir, AND where then goest thou, gentle sigh, Passing so softly by? Goest thou to carry misery To some poor wretched lover? And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, Passing so softly by? Now Heaven conduct thee safely on, According to thy will; One boon alone I ask of thee, Wound-but forbear to kill. And where then goest thou, gentle sigh, CHRISTINE DE PISAN. Ir may be said that both this lady, and Charles duke of Orleans, who is noticed next, belong to a period rather later than the one which this volume purports to illustrate. Some license will, however, be taken on this occasion; and it is assumed with the less ceremony, because the works of neither of these poets have ever been printed, we believe, except in a few extracts, (such as those contained in the second volume of "Les Poètes François depuis le XIIe siècle jusqu'à Malherbe,") and because we should otherwise wholly fail in what we promised (p. 81), under the expectation of much more extensive MS. research in this department. Our selections from Christine de Pisan are taken from a very fine richly illuminated folio MS. in the British Museum [Harl. 4431], which well deserves notice. Christine was an Italian by birth, and followed her father at the age of five years, in 1368, to the court of Charles V., where she afterwards married, at an early period of her life, Chastel, the king's historiographer, by whom she was left in poverty, a widow with three children, when only twenty-five. She sought her consolation in literary pursuits, and became celebrated for the variety and beauty of her compositions. France has not done justice to this amiable woman, whose works possess a degree of merit far above the age in which she lived. The collection contains a hundred ballads, in the last of which she says of herself— Cent ballades j'ay cy escriptes, Ne les ay faits pour meriter The piece that reflects most honour on the character of this lady is her address of moral advice to her son; who, it is said, was brought over by the earl of Salisbury, under Richard II., to be educated with his own son in England, whither Christine herself was afterwards ineffectually invited by Henry IV. We shall select a few stanzas. Fils, je n'ai mie grand tresor Pour t'enrichir—mais, au lieu d'or, Ayme Dieu de toute ta force, Se tu viens en prosperité A grant cheuance et herité, Gardes qu'orgueil ne te sourmonte, Tiens ta promesse et tres peu jure, Si tu veulx vivre à court en paix, Ne te corrouces de legier, Ja que dangereux ne soit ton mangier..... Tiens tes filles trop mieux vestues, Que bien aornees soient veues ; |
