Would to God I Had Never Touched, Poem by Pierre De Ronsard

Would to God I had never touched
So madly the breast of my love!
Without it truly the other greater desire,
Alas! would never, never have tempted me.

Like a fish, for having rushed too much,
By a bait, follows the end of its life,
So I see where death invites me,
By a beautiful breast gently lured.

Who would have thought that cruel destiny
Had enclosed beneath so beautiful a breast
So great a fire, to make me its prey?

Consider then, what the lying would be
Between her arms, since a simple touch
Of a thousand deaths, innocent, would strike me down.

Pierre de Ronsard

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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