later French sonnetteers. But it is to Desportes that Daniel owes
most, and his methods of handling his material may be judged by a
comparison of his Sonnet xxvi. with Sonnet lxiii. in Desportes'
collection, 'Cleonice: Dernieres Amours,' which was issued at Paris in
1575.

Desportes' sonnet runs:

Je verray par les ans vengeurs de mon martyre
Que l'or de vos cheveux argente deviendra,
Que de vos deux soleils la splendeur s'esteindra,
Et qu'il faudra qu'Amour tout confus s'en retire.
La beaute qui si douce a present vous inspire,
Cedant aux lois du Temps ses faveurs reprendra,
L'hiver de vostre teint les fleurettes perdra,
Et ne laissera rien des thresors que i'admire.
Cest orgueil desdaigneux qui vous fait ne m'aimer,
En regret et chagrin se verra transformer,
Avec le changement d'une image si belle:
Et peut estre qu'alors vous n'aurez desplaisir
De revivre en mes vers chauds d'amoureux desir,
Ainsi que le Phenix au feu se renouvelle.

This is Daniel's version, which he sent forth as an original production:

I once may see, when years may wreck my wrong,
And golden hairs may change to silver wire;
And those bright rays (that kindle all this fire)
Shall fail in force, their power not so strong,
Her beauty, now the burden of my song,
Whose glorious blaze the world's eye doth admire,
Must yield her praise to tyrant Time's desire;
Then fades the flower, which fed her pride so long,
When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,
Which then presents her winter-withered hue:
Go you my verse! go tell her what she was!
For what she was, she best may find in you.
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But Phoenix-like to make her live anew.

In Daniel's beautiful sonnet (xlix.) beginning,

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

he has borrowed much from De Baif and Pierre de Brach, sonnetteers with
whom it was a convention to invocate 'O Sommeil chasse-soin.' But again
he chiefly relies on Desportes, whose words he adapts with very slight
variations. Sonnet lxxiii. of Desportes' 'Amours d'Hippolyte' opens
thus:

Sommeil, paisible fils de la Nuict solitaire . . .
O frere de la Mort, que tu m'es ennemi!

Fame of Daniel's sonnets.

Daniel's sonnets were enthusiastically received. With some ad