But the poetry of the Pleiad is true not only to the physiognomy of its
age, but also to its country--ce pays du Vendomois--the names and scenery
of which so often recur in it; the great Loire, with its long spaces of
white sand; the little river Loir; the heathy, upland country, with its
scattered pools of water and waste road-sides,, and retired manors, with
their crazy old feudal defences half fallen into decay; La Beauce, the
granary of France, where the vast rolling fields of corn seem to
anticipate the great western sea itself. It is full of the traits of that
country. We see Du Bellay and Ronsard gardening, or hunting with their
dogs, or watch the pastimes of a rainy day; and with this is connected a
domesticity, a homeliness and simple goodness, by which this Northern
country gains upon the South. They have the love of the aged for warmth,
and understand the poetry of winter; for they are not far from the
Atlantic, and the west wind which comes up from it, turning the poplars
white, spares not this new Italy in France.
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