Yeats on Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard is one of my favorites. To see where Yeats was coming from, the following from the Sonnets pour Hélène:

Quand vous serez bien vielle, au soir, à la chandelle,
Assise auprès du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant:
«Ronsard me célébrait du temps que j'étais belle.»

Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Déjà sous le labeur à demi sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de Ronsard ne s'aille réveillant,
Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.

Je serai sous le terre, et fantôme sans os,
Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos;
Vous serez au foyer une vieille accroupie,

Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain.
Vivez, si m'en croyez, n'attendez à demain;
Cueillez dès aujourd'hui les roses de la vie.

When you are very old, by candle glow,
Beside the fire where you spin and skein,
You'll sing my songs, and murmur once again,
"I was admired by Ronsard long ago."

And then your servant, sleepy now and slow
With labour, when she hears that soft refrain,
Will wake to recognise my deathless strain
On praise of beauty that I used to know.

My body will be underground, and I
A boneless wraith; and this will be your fate,
A bent old crone, remembering with a sigh
My love and your contempt for it -- too late!

Then live, believe me, live without delay;
Gather the roses of your life today.

translation by Reine Errington

This was a common theme with poets of the time. Compare with Marvell's advice to the virgins, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may".


Someone wanted more poems. One of my favorites, which includes two expressions which nearly everyone will recognise, is Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard which is too long to quote here, but you can see it at http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/gray4.html