Terese, I can't recite the Ronsard, but it's unspeakably gorgeous, even better than the Yeats. It is definitely an "imitation." Not a translation. As is Part XI of "A Man Young and Old" where Yeats paraphrases that great chorus from Oedipus at Colonus, and concludes:
Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say,
Never to have drawn the breath of life or looked upon the light of day.
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.
Speaking of Ronsard and the Greek Anthology:
Scribblers to be rid of,
poets I shall discard
when I dispense with love:
Anacreon, Ronsard.
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