English

A LADY in whom love is manifest —
That love which perfect honour doth adorn —
Hath ta'en the living heart out of thy breast,
Which in her keeping to new life is born:
For there by such sweet power it is possest
As even is felt of Indian unicorn:
And all its virtue now, with fierce unrest,
Unto thy soul makes difficult return.
For this thy lady is virtue's minister
In suchwise that no fault there is to show,
Save that God made her mortal on this ground.
And even herein His wisdom shall be found:

Through this my strong and new misaventure,
All now is lost to me
Which most was sweet in Love's supremacy.

So much of life is dead in its control,
That she, my pleasant lady of all grace,
Is gone out of the devastated soul:
I see her not, nor do I know her place;
Nor even enough of virtue with me stays
To understand, ah me!
The flower of her exceeding purity.

Because there comes — to kill that gentle thought
With saying that I shall not see her more —
This constant pain wherewith I am distraught,

G UIDO , I wish that Lapo, thou, and I,
Could be by spells conveyed, as it were now,
Upon a barque, with all the winds that blow
Across all seas at our good will to hie.
So no mischance nor temper of the sky
Should mar our course with spite or cruel slip;
But we, observing old companionship,
To be companions still should long thereby.
And Lady Joan, and Lady Beatrice,
And her the thirtieth on my roll, with us
Should our good wizard set, o'er seas to move
And not to talk of anything but love:

M ADRIGAL

I F thou hadst offered, friend, to blessed Mary
  A pious voluntary,
 As thus: ‘Fair rose, in holy garden set:’
Thou then hadst found a true similitude:
  Because all truth and good
 Are hers, who was the mansion and the gate
Wherein abode our High Salvation,
  Conceived in her, a Son,
 Even by the angel's greeting whom she met.
Be thou assured that if one cry to her,
  Confessing, ‘I did err,’
 For death she gives him life; for she is great.

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.

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.

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 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.

There is a vice prevails
Concerning which I'll set you on your guard;
And other four, which hard
It were (as may be thought) that I should blame.

Some think that still of them —
Whate'er is said — some ill speech lies beneath;
And this to them is death:
Whereby we plainly may perceive their sins.

And now let others wince.
One sort there is, who, thinking that they please,