Sonnet VIII

Louise Labe 1525 (Lyon) – 1566 (Lyon)



I live, I burn, I drown and I die
I endure at once chill and cold;
Life is too hard and too soft to hold;
I am joyful and sad, don't ask me why.

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And as I'm happy I must endure grief,
It lasts forever and goes like a thief,
Suddenly I bloom and vanish into sigh.

Thus I suffer Amors' inconstancy
And when I think I am in great pain,
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when my joy is a certainty
And my longing for love is not in vain,
I am in pain all over once again.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

34 sec read
136

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA ACCA DEF DEF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 510
Words 112
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3

Louise Labe

Louise Labé, also identified as La Belle Cordière, was a female French poet of the Renaissance, born in Lyon, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, Pierre Charly, and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet. A recent book has argued that the poetry ascribed to her was a feminist creation of a number of French male poets of the Renaissance. more…

All Louise Labe poems | Louise Labe Books

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