The first of these two songs was written for one of the Revue Musicale's special editions, this one honoring the 400th anniversary of the poet Pierre de Ronsard's birth; the second song was written a few days later. Other composers writing for the occasion included Paul Dukas, Maurice Ravel, Arthur Honegger, Andre Caplet and Maurice Delage.

Roussel wrote other pieces commissioned by the Revue Musicale, including L'accueil des muses for piano in honor of Debussy and the fugue section of the Prelude et fugue, opus 46, in honor of Bach. In addition, the Revue ran a special edition honoring Roussel's 60th birthday in 1929. All in all, the magazine made quite an impressive contribution to the musical culture of its day — not the least of which are Roussel's irresistible Ronsard songs, which are far and away the most popular songs he ever wrote.

Rossignol, mon mignon
Nightingales (rossignol in French) enjoyed quite a musical vogue in the early part of the 20th Century; the most well-known compositions about the bird from this period include Berg's Die Nachtigall and Stravinsky's The Nightingale and Song of the Nightingale. Roussel's little nightingale song is nowhere near as ambitious as these other works. The flute takes the role of nightingale, singing happily while the voice sings unhappily of love.

Ciel, aer et vens
Roussel's favorite theme in his mélodies is that of saying farewell to a loved one. He returns to this theme in this second song, which is an earnest and melancholy entreaty to the sky, air and wind (Ciel, aer et vens) to pass on a bittersweet message of farewell.

The rustic nature of the scenery [in Ciel, aer et vens] is rendered by the rhythm of the sicilienne, while the mode evokes the times of antiquity, much like Ravel in L'enfant et les sortileges. [Anonymous]

Singers and flautists alike are unanimous in their delight over "Deux Poemes de Ronsard," not only because their own individual lines are so apt, but because the writing is so much of a piece; the balance is so good and it is real chamber music. [Norman Demuth]

Their extreme starkness gives them a great beauty, for here Roussel has the voice and the flute dialogue together, thereby limiting the play of his counterpoint to just two melodic lines, both admirable in their austere nakedness. [Dom Angelico Surchamp]