Laudator Temporis Acti

Charles d'Orléans (1394-1465), Rondel (tr. A.S. Kline):

Off with you now, away, away,
Grief and Care and Melancholy!
Think you to take control of me
All my life, like yesterday?

I promise you, no, never, I say:
Reason shall have the mastery.
Off with you now, away, away,
Grief and Care and Melancholy!

If you ever come back this way
You and your whole company,
May God curse you, all you three,
And whatever brought you, I pray:
Off with you now, away, away,
Grief and Care and Melancholy!

Alez vous en, alez, alez,
Soussy, Soing et Merencolie,
Me cuidez vous toute ma vie
Gouverner, comme fait avez?

Je vous promet que non ferez,
Raison aura sur vous maistrie.
Alez vous en, alez, alez,
Soussy, Soing et Merencolie.

Se jamais plus vous retournez
Avecques vostre compaignie,
Je pri à Dieu qu'il vous maudie,
Et ce par qui vous revendrez.
Alez vous en, alez, alez,
Soussy, Soing et Merencolie.

Stevie Smith:

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Are not the trees green,
The earth as green?
Does not the wind blow,
Fire leap and the rivers flow?
Away melancholy.

The ant is busy
He carrieth his meat,
All things hurry
To be eaten or eat.
Away, melancholy.

Man, too, hurries,
Eats, couples, buries,
He is an animal also
With a hey ho melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.

Man of all creatures
Is superlative
(Away melancholy)
He of all creatures alone
Raiseth a stone
(Away melancholy)
Into the stone, the god,
Pours what he knows of good
Calling good, God.
Away melancholy, let it go.

Speak not to me of tears,
Tyranny, pox, wars,
Saying Can God,
Stone of man's thought, be good?

Say rather it is enough
That the stuffed
Stone of man's good, growing,
By man's called God.
Away, melancholy, let it go.

Man aspires
To good,
To love
Sighs;

Beaten, corrupted, dying
In his own blood lying
Yet heaves up an eye above
Cries, Love, love.
It is his virtue needs explaining,
Not his failing.

Away, melancholy,
Away with it, let it go.