| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | The Sonnet of the Mountain | | By Mellin de Saint-Gelais (c. 1491–1558) |
| | Translated by Austin Dobson
WHEN from afar these mountain tops I view, | |
| I do but mete mine own distress thereby: | |
| High is their head, and my desire is high; | |
| Firm is their foot, my faith is certain too. | |
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| E’en as the winds about their summits blue, | 5 |
| From me too breaks betimes the wistful sigh; | |
| And as from them the brooks and streamlets hie, | |
| So from mine eyes the tears run down anew. | |
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| A thousand flocks upon them feed and stray; | |
| As many loves within me see the day, | 10 |
| And all my heart for pasture ground divide. | |
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| No fruit have they, my lot as fruitless is; | |
| And ’twixt us now nought diverse is but this— | |
| In them the snows, in me the fires abide. | | | | |
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