A collection of French poems celebrating nature (1/2)

Far from being confined to idyllic descriptions, French poetry is full of treasures that call for treating nature with reverence. Because Ronsard is not only Cute, let's go see if the rose, La Fontaine is not only Master crow, perched on a tree,... Making a complete anthology could have its advantages, but let's just set a first milestone with the following anthology.

Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

AGAINST THE LUMBERJACKS OF THE GASTINE FOREST

Listen, Lumberjack, stop your arm a bit!
It's not wood you throw away;
Can't you see the blood, which drips by force
Nymphs who lived under the hard bark?

Murderous sacrilege, if one hangs a thief
To plunder loot of very little value,
How many fires, how many irons, how many deaths and how many sufferings
Do you deserve, villain, to kill our goddesses?

Forest, high house of bocage birds,
Plus solitary deer and light deer
Will not graze under your shade, and your green mane
No more summer sun will break the light,
Plus the lover Pastor, on a leaning trunk,
Inflating his flageolet with four pierced holes,
His mastiff at his feet, his rod at his side,
Say goodbye to the ardor of his beautiful Jeanette.
Everything will go mute; Echo will be speechless;
You will become a country and, instead of your woods
Whose uncertain shade is slowly moving,
You will feel the ploughshare, the cutter, and the plow;
You will lose your silence, and gasp with dread
Neither Satyrs nor Pans will come to your house anymore.

Farewell, old forest, Zephyry's toy,
Where first I tuned the languages of my lyre,
Where first I heard the arrows sound
Of Apollo, who amazed me wholeheartedly;
Where first, admiring the beautiful Calliope,
I fell in love with his novena trope,
When his hand on the forehead a hundred roses threw me
And Euterpe breastfed me with his own milk.
Farewell, old forest, goodbye, sacred heads,
Of paintings and flowers that were once honored,
Now the disdain of the altered passers-by,
Who, burn ethereal rays in summer
Without finding the freshness of your sweet greenery,
Accuse your murderers and tell them insults.

Farewell, oak trees, wreath to the valiant citizens,
Jupiter trees, Dodonean germs,
Who was the first to give food to humans!
Truly ungrateful peoples, who did not know how to recognize
The goods received from you, really rude peoples
To massacre our foster fathers in this way!

How unhappy is the man who in the world trusts!
O Gods, how true is philosophy
Who says that everything will perish in the end
And that by changing shape another will dress;
From Tempé the valley will one day be a mountain
And the summit of Athos a wide countryside,
Neptune will sometimes be covered with wheat;
The material remains, and the form is lost.

Pierre de Ronsard
(Elegies, XXIV, 1560)

Joachim of Bellay (1522-1560)

AT THE LOIRE RIVER

O from whom the long run
Takes its blessed source,
From an Argentine fountain,
Who from a distant flight
Make you fluctuating
Of the monstrous ocean,
Loire, raise your boss now
High, and high again,
And cast your divine eye
In this Angevin country,
The happiest and most fertile,
What else where your wave is distilling.
Many gods other than you, Father,
Deign to love this den,
To whom was Heaven a donor
With all grace and happiness.
Ceres, when vagabond
Went querying around the world
His daughter, whose owner
Was the infernal kidnapper,
Of his sacred steps touched
This earth, and lay down
Leave on your green shore,
Who gave him a sweet drink.
And this one, who for mother
Had his father's thigh,
The God of India victorious
Arrosa de sa liqueur
The mountains, the valles and the countryside
Of this land that you live in.
Look, my river, too
In these forests here,
Who has their bright hair
Rise around your shores,
The faunas with sudden feet,
Who after deer and deer,
And deer with rowed heads
Have their strengths animated.
Look at your beautiful Nymphs
To these rebellious Demigods,
Who is following them at large,
And so close to them arrive,
That they smell very often
From their breath the wind.
I can already see out of breath
The poor women, who barely
Will be able to reach your course,
If you don't help them.
How much (to help them)
Have we seen you run sometimes
All mad on the plain?
Deceiving hope and sorrow
Of the miserly ploughman,
Alas! Who had no horror
Wounding a sacrilegious ploughshare
Of your Nymphs the college,
Collège qui se ré
Above your sacred shore.
So who will want to praise and sing
Everything that India brags about,
Sicily the fabulous,
Or happy Arabia.
As for me, as long as my Lyre
Will you elect the songs
That I will order from him,
My Anjou I will sing.
O my fatherly river,
When to sleep forever
Will make it fall upside down
Whoever sings these lines,
And only by the arms friends
My body close will be put on
From some living fountain,
Not very far from your shore,
At least on my cold ashes
Make some tears come down,
And my famous noise sounds
To your foamy shore.
Don't forget the name of that
Who all beauties excel,
And what's in it for her too
Sung on that edge here.

Joachim Du Bellay

Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695)

THE SWALLOW AND THE LITTLE BIRDS

A Swallow on her travels

Had learned a lot. Anyone who has seen a lot

May have retained a lot.

It foresaw even the smallest storms,

And before they were hatched,

Announced them to the sailors.

It happened that by the time hemp was sown,

She saw a manant covering many furrows.

“I don't like this,” she said to Les Oisillons:

I pity you; because for me, in this extreme peril,

I will know how to get away, or live somewhere.

Do you see this hand moving through the air?

A day will come, which is not far away,

What it spreads will be your ruin.

From there will be born machines to envelop you,

And shoelaces to catch you;

Finally, again and again machine

Who will be chatting in the season

Your death or your prison.

Park the cage or the cauldron!

That is why, said the Swallow to them,

Eat that grain and believe me. ”

The Birds laughed at her:

They found too much in the fields.

When the goat cheese was green,

The Swallow said to them, “Tear off piece by piece.

What this bad seed produced,

Or be sure of your loss.

-Prophet of doom, babble, they say,

What a great job you are giving us!

We need a thousand people

To peel off all that canton. ”

Since hemp is completely raw,

L'Hirondelle added: “This is not going well;

Bad seed came early.

But since until now I have not been believed in anything,

As soon as you see that the earth

Will be covered, and only at their wheat

People are no longer busy

Will make war with the chicks;

When reginglets and networks

Will catch little birds,

Don't steal more space in place;

Stay at home, or change the climate:

Imitate the Duck, the Crane and the Woodcock.

But you are not in good condition

To pass deserts and airwaves like us,

Nor to search for other worlds.

That is why you only have one party that is safe:

It is to lock yourself in the holes in some wall. ”

Les Oisillons, tired of hearing it,

They started talking so confusingly

What were the Trojans doing when poor Cassandra

Just opened his mouth.

He took some from one to the other:

Maint Oisillon saw himself as a detained slave.

We only listen instinctively to those who are our own,

And let's not believe in evil until it has come.

Jean de la Fontaine