Ciel, air et vents, plains et monts découverts, 
Tertres [vineux]1 et forêts verdoyantes, 
Rivages tors et sources ondoyantes, 
Taillis rasés et vous, bocages verts, 
Antres moussus à demi-front ouverts, 
[Prés, boutons, fleurs et herbes rousoyantes, 
[Coteaux vineux]2 et plages blondoyantes,]3
[Et vous rochers, écoliers de mes vers!]4
Puisqu'au partir, rongé de soin et d'ire, 
A ce bel œil adieu je n'ai su dire, 
Qui près et loin me détient en émoi, 
Je vous suppli', ciel, air, vents, monts et plaines, 
Taillis, forêts, rivages et fontaines 
Antres, prés, fleurs, dites-le-lui pour moi. 

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Roussel: "fourchus"
² Escher: "Vallons bossus"; Roussel: "Coutans vineus"
³ Leguerney exchanges these lines.
⁴ Escher: "Et vous rochers, les hostes de mes vers"; Roussel: "Gâtine, Loir, et vous mes tristes vers"; in another version Ronsard has "Et vous rochers, les hostes de mes vers!"

Authorship

• by Pierre de Ronsard (1524 - 1585), no title, appears in L'amour de Cassandre , no. 11 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

• by Nicolas Chevereau (b. 1989), "Ciel, air et vents", 2014, published 2014 [baritone and piano], from Quatre poèmes de Ronsard pour baryton et piano, no. 4, Éd. du compositeur [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Rudolf Escher (1912 - 1980), "Sonnet", 1957, from Ciel, air et vents, no. 3 [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Noël Lee (1924 - 2013), "Ciel, air, et vents", 2010 [medium voice and piano] [ sung text not yet checked against a primary source]
• by Jacques Leguerney (1906 - 1997), "Invocation: Ciel, air et vents", 1944, published 1986, first performed 1947 [dramatic soprano or mezzo-soprano and piano], from Poèmes de la Pléiade, Vol. IV, no. 2, Max Eschig [ sung text checked 1 time]
• by Albert Roussel (1869 - 1937), "Ciel, air et vents", op. 26 no. 2 (1924), published 1924, first performed 1924 [flute and soprano], from Deux poèmes de Ronsard, no. 2, Éd. Durand [ sung text checked 1 time]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Faith J. Cormier) , "Sky, air and winds", copyright © 2005, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Jeroen Scholten

Text added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:01:47
Line count: 14
Word count: 91

Sky, air and winds, naked hills and plains,
vine-covered mounds and green forests, 
twisting banks and flowing springs, 
fallen thickets, green woods, 
mossy caves half-concealed, 
fields, buds, flowers, warming grasses, 
viney slopes and pale beaches, 
and you, rocks, schooled by my verses,
because when parting, full of care and anger, 
I could not say adieu to this fair eye
which stirs me whether near or far, 
I beg you, sky, air, winds, mountains and plains, 
thickets, forests, banks and springs, 
caves, fields, flowers, tell her for me.