Joachim du Bellay 57  Joachim du Bellay (ca. 1522–60) Les Amours XIII As often a fire that’s laid too close by ferns Fastens at whim among the fern-bushes, Or, finding wheatfields where a wind runs loose, In fury of light limbs hurdles and burns, As the attendant youngsters of his race Will filter all the wood in finding out Where, gnarled in bole or root, the pastor heat Holds separate from their less canny pace: So will love tindered in close innocence Leap often boundless past its own surprise, And it were wiser my pen here should stop Than, running, semble a man small of sense Who in the play and boredom of his house Spurred off a flame that he could not rein up. W. S. Merwin, 1949 ...