From From Songs & Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, Translated into English Verse with an Introductory Essay and Notes by Curtis Hidden Page; Houghton Mifflin Company; Boston and New York; 1903 and 1924; p. 97.
[97]
Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)
Translated from the French by Curtis Hidden Page
THE POWER OF SONG
COLUMNS uplifted high,
Or living bronze,
Or stone carved skilfully,
Fame’s clarions —
Never to men can give
Their deathless meed
Like song that makes to live
Each noble deed.
If poets had not come
To grace their name,
Virtue herself were dumb,
And tongueless Fame,
And dead the memory
Of Hector’s worth.
But winged with song they fly
Throughout the earth.
