On Spring, Poem by Jean-Antoine de Baïf

The lazy coldness
Of winter has had its time:
Here is the joyful season
Of delightful spring.

The earth is adorned with grasses,
The grass with little flowers;
The renewed foliage
Casts shade in the forest.

Very early in the morning the maiden
Goes to outrun the heat
In order, from the new rose,
To gather the fragrant flower;

To have better grace,
Whether she adorns her breast with it,
Or whether as a gift she offers it
To her loved one from her hand;

Who, having it from her hand,
As a remembrance of love,
Will not let it out of his sight,
Kissing it a hundred times a day.

But hear in the grove
The shepherd’s pipe,
Which entices the song
Of the woodland nightingale.

See the clear and pure wave
Ripple in the streams;
In them see the greenery
Of these neighboring shrubs.

The sea is calm and gentle;
The sky is serene and clear;
The ship passes as far as the Indies;
A good wind makes it fly.

The messenger bees
Make a sweet sound here and there,
Fluttering among the little flowers
To gather what suits them.

In their hive they amass
The flower of the best flowers:
It is so that they may make from them
The sweet liquor of honey.

Everything resounds with the clear voices
Of all kinds of birds:
Through the fields of larks,
Of swans upon the waters.

In the houses the swallows,
In the nightingales in the woods,
In gay new songs
Exercise their beautiful voices.

Therefore the sorrow and the ease
Of love I shall sing,
As its flame, whether bad
Or good, I shall feel.

And if singing pleases me,
Is it not with reason,
Since thus everything is recreated
With the gay season?

Jean-Antoine de Baïf

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

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-of-spring-jean-antoine-de-baif/