G UIDO , an image of my lady dwells
At San Michele in Orto, consecrate
And duly worshipped. Fair in holy state
She listens to the tale each sinner tells:
And among them that come to her, who ails
The most, on him the most doth blessing wait.
She bids the fiend men's bodies abdicate;
Over the curse of blindness she prevails,
And heals sick languors in the public squares.
A multitude adores her reverently:
Before her face two burning tapers are;
Her voice is uttered upon paths afar.
Yet through the Lesser Brethren's jealousy

Even such is time that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Even on a spring morning
my Sicilian pipe makes a sound of autumn
retracing thoughts past thousands of years

Because I find not whom to speak withal
Anent that lord whose I am as thou art,
Behoves that in thine ear I tell some part
Of this whereof I gladly would say all.
And deem thou nothing else occasional
Of my long silence while I kept apart,
Except this place, so guilty at the heart
That the right has not who will give it stall.
Love comes not here to any woman's face,
Nor any man here for his sake will sigh,
For unto such, " Thou fool!" were straightway said.
Ah! Master Cino, how the time turns base,

D ANTE , since I from my own native place
In heavy exile have turned wanderer,
Far distant from the purest joy which e'er
Had issued from the Fount of joy and grace,
I have gone weeping through the world's dull space,
And me proud Death, as one too mean, doth spare;
Yet meeting Love, Death's neighbour, I declare
That still his arrows hold my heart in chase.
Nor from his pitiless aim can I get free,
Nor from the hope which comforts my weak will,
Though no true aid exists which I could share.
One pleasure ever binds and looses me;

I THOUGHT to be for ever separate,
Fair Master Cino, from these rhymes of yours;
Since further from the coast, another course,
My vessel now must journey with her freight.
Yet still, because I hear men name your state
As his whom every lure doth straight beguile,
I pray you lend a very little while
Unto my voice your ear grown obdurate.
The man after this measure amorous,
Who still at his own will is bound and loosed,
How slightly Love him wounds is lightly known.
If on this wise your heart in homage bows,

Even now the fragrant darkness of her hair
Had brushed my cheek; and once, in passing by,
Her hand upon my hand lay tranquilly:
What things unspoken trembled in the air!

Always I know, how little severs me
From mine heart's country, that is yet so far;
And must I lean and long across a bar,
That half a word would shatter utterly?

Ah might it be, that just by touch of hand,
Or speaking silence, shall the barrier fall;
And she shall pass, with no vain words at all,
But droop into mine arms, and understand!

Even now
My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter
With garlands tissue and golden buds,
Smoke tangles of her hair, and sleeping or waking
Feet trembling in love, full of pale languor;
My thought is clinging as to a lost learning
Slipped down out of the minds of men,
Laboring to bring her back into my soul.

Even now
If I see in my soul the citron-breasted fair one
Still gold-tinted, her face like our night stars,
Drawing unto her; her body beaten about with flame,
Wounded by the flaring spear of love,

Even as the day when it is yet at dawning
Seems mild and kind, being fair to look upon,
While the birds carol underneath their awning
Of leaves, as if they never would have done;
Which on a sudden changes, just at noon,
And the broad light is broken into rain
That stops and comes again;
Even as the traveller, who had held his way
Hopeful and glad because of the bright weather,
Forgetteth then his gladness altogether;
Even so am I, through Love, alas the day!

It plainly is through Love that I am so.

FOR A VOLUME OF DOUBLE AUTHORSHIP

Even as tender parents lovingly
Send a dear child in some true servant's care
Forth in the street, for larger light and air,
Feeling the sun her guardian will be,
And dreaming with a blushful pride that she
Will earn sweet smiles and glances everywhere,
From loving faces; and that passers fair
Will bend, and bless, and kiss her, when they see,
And ask her name, and if her home is near,
And think, " O gentle child, how blessed are they
Whose twofold love bears up a single flower! "