Laudator Temporis Acti

Charles d'Orléans (1394-1465), Rondeau (tr. Sir Henry Wotton):

The year has changed his mantle cold
Of wind, of rain, of bitter air,
And he goes clad in cloth of gold
Of laughing suns and season fair;
No bird or beast of wood or wold
But doth in cry or song declare
'The year has changed his mantle cold!'

All founts, all rivers seaward rolled
Their pleasant summer livery wear
With silver studs on broidered vair,
The world puts off its raiment old,
The year has changed his mantle cold.

The same (tr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow):

Now Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain,
And clothes him in the embroidery
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky.
With beast and bird the forest rings,
Each in his jargon cries or sings;
And Time throws off his cloak again.
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.

River, and fount, and tinkling brook
Wear in their dainty livery
Drops of silver jewelry;
In new-made suit they merry look;
And Time throws off his cloak again
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain.

Hilaire Belloc, in Avril: Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance, discusses this and another rondeau of Charles d'Orléans:

These two Rondeaux, of which we may also presume, though very vaguely, that they were written in England (for they are in the manner of his earlier work), are by far the most famous of the many things he wrote; and justly, for they have all these qualities.

First, they are exact specimens of their style. The Roundel should interweave, repeat itself, and then recover its original strain, and these two exactly give such unified diversity.

Secondly: they were evidently written in a moment of that unknown power when words suggest something fuller than their own meaning, and in which simplicity itself broadens the mind of the reader. So that it is impossible to put one's finger upon this or that and say this adjective, that order of the words has given the touch of vividness.

Thirdly: they have in them still a living spirit of reality; read them to-day in Winter, and you feel the Spring. It is this quality perhaps which most men have seized in them, and which have deservedly made them immortal.

A further character which has added to their fame, is that, being perfect lyrics, they are also specimens of an old-fashioned manner and metre peculiar to the time. They are the resurrection not only of the Spring, but of a Spring of the fifteenth century. Nor is it too fantastic to say that one sees in them the last miniatures and the very dress of a time that was intensely beautiful, and in which Charles of Orleans alone did not feel death coming.

Belloc prints the original as follows:

  Le temps a laissié son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluye,
Et s'est vestu de brouderie,
De soleil luyant, cler et beau.
Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau,
Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie;
Le temps a laissié son manteau
De vent de froidure et de pluye.

  Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent, en livrée jolie,
Gouttes d'argent d'orfavrerie,
Chascun s'abille de nouveau.
Le temps a laissié son manteau.

In modern orthography:

  Le temps a laissé son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie
Et s'est vêtu de broderie,
De soleil luisant, clair et beau.
Il n'y a bête ni oiseau
Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie:
"Le temps a laissé son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie."

  Rivière, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent, en livrée jolie,
Gouttes d'argent, d'orfèvrerie,
Chacun s'habille de nouveau:
Le temps a laissé son manteau.