’Les petits cors, culbutant de travers,
  Parmi leur cheute en biais vagabonde,
  Heurtes ensemble ont compose le monde,
  S’entr’acrochant d’acrochemens divers....’

For this is not grown-up; the cut to simplicity has been too short.  So many of Ronsard’s verses flow over the mind, without disturbing it; fall charmingly on the ear, and leave no echoes.  But for the moment we share his enjoyment.

The second cause of his continued power of attraction is doubtless allied to the first; it is a naivete of a particular kind, which differs from the profound ingenuousness of which we have spoken by the fact that it is employed deliberately.  Conscious simplicity is art, and if it is successful art of no mean order, Ronsard’s method of admitting us, as it were, to his conversation with himself is definitely his own.  His interruptions of a verse with ‘Ha’ or ‘He’; his ’Mon Dieu, que j’aime!’ or ‘He, que ne suis-je puce?’ (the difference between Ronsard’s flea and Donne’s would be worth examination) have in them an element of irresistible bonhomie.  We feel that he is making us his confidant.  He does not have to tear agonies out of himself, so that what he confides has no chance of making explicit any secrets of our own.  There is nothing dangerous about him; we know that he is as safe as we are.  We are in conversation, not communion.  But how effective and engaging it is!

  ‘Vous ne le voulez pas?  Eh bien, je suis contant ...’

  ’He, Dieu du ciel, je n’eusse pas pense
  Qu’un seul depart eust cause tant de peine!...’

or the still more casual

  ’Un joieus deplaisir qui douteus l’epointelle,
  Quoi l’epointelle! aincois le genne et le martelle ...’

Of this device of style our own Elizabethans were to make more profitable use than Ronsard.  At their best they packed an intensity of dramatic significance into conversational language, of which Ronsard had no inkling; and even a strict contemporary of his, like Wyatt, could touch cords more intimate by the same means.  But, on the other hand, Ronsard never fails of his own effect, which is not to convince us emotionally, but to compel us to listen.  His unexpected address to himself or to us is a new ornament for us to admire, not a new method for him to express a new thing; and the suggestion of new rhythms that might thus be attained is never fully worked out.

  ’Mais tu ne seras plus?  Et puis?... quand la paleur
  Qui blemist notre corps sans chaleur ne lumiere
  Nous perd le sentiment?...

The ampleness of that reverberance is almost isolated.