TRANSIT MUNDUS Pierre de Ronsard Another Winter comes. The last comes soon, I know.

For six and fifty years have blanched my head with snow. The time is here to say, Farewell, to love and song, And take my leave of lifes best days, for oh! how long!... Yet I have lived. So much stands safe beyond recall. I grudge not life its joys. I have tasted one and all, Nor eer refrained my hand from pleasures within reach, Save but as Reason set due measure unto each. The part assigned me I have played on this lifes stage In costume fitted to the times and to my age. Ive seen the morning dawn, and evening come again. Ive seen the storm, the lightning flash, the hail, the rain. Peoples Ive seen, and kings!For twenty years now past Ive seen each day rise upon France as though her last. Wars I have seen, and strife of words, and terms of truce First made and then unmade again, then made by ruse To break and make again!... Ive seen that neath the moon All was but change and chance, and danced to Fortunes tune. Though man seek Prudence out for guide, it boots him naught; Fate ineluctable doth hold him chained and caught, Bound hand and foot, in prison; and all he may propose Fortune and Fate, wisely mayhap, themselves dispose. Full-feasted of the world, even as a wedding guest Goes from the banquet hall, I go to my long rest; As from a kings great feast, I go not with ill grace Though after me one come, and take the abandoned place.