Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume III. Sorrow and Consolation. 1904. | | | | IV. Comfort and Cheer | | Sonnet: “While yet these tears have power to flow” | | Louise Labé (c. 1520–1566) |
| | From the French by Louise Stuart Costello
WHILE yet these tears have power to flow | |
| For hours for ever past away; | |
| While yet these swelling sighs allow | |
| My faltering voice to breathe a lay; | |
| While yet my hand can touch the chords, | 5 |
| My tender lute, to wake thy tone; | |
| While yet my mind no thought affords, | |
| But one remembered dream alone, | |
| I ask not death, whate’er my state: | |
| But when my eyes can weep no more, | 10 |
| My voice is lost, my hand untrue, | |
| And when my spirit’s fire is o’er, | |
| Nor can express the love it knew, | |
| Come, Death, and cast thy shadows o’er my fate! | | | | |
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