English

LAURA'S VIRTUOUS DENIALS PROVED HIS SALVATION

O sweet severity, repulses sweet,
Filled with chaste love, with fervent pity filled;
O delicate admonitions that so stilled
The breast distraught, instructed the mad heat;
O gentle speech where joyously would meet
The thought that purged, the courtesy that thrilled;
O flower of virtue, fountain that overspilled
With splendour, food for the sick soul to eat;
Divine regard whose glance beatified,
In flame of pure pride terrible to resist

WHEREIN HE MAKES CONFESSION AND ENTREATS THE LORD'S GRACE

Weeping, I still regret the years that went
In empty sacrifice to mortal things;
No swooping starward, though my soul had wings
Which might have brushed Thy burning element.
O Thou, that know'st so well how I repent,
Sovereign of space, immortal King of Kings,
Succour the soul torn with self-torturings —
To Thee it turns: O prove Thou provident!
To my war-shattered life appoint Thou still
Death as the port of peace; and if my course

WHEREIN HE REPENTS HIS ERRORS AND PLEADS FOR MERCY FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION

Love kept me one and twenty years a slave;
His flame was bliss, his agony was hope;
When with my heart my Lady reached the Slope
Star-swept, my tears ten summers drenched her grave.
Now, shattered quite, I loathe the life that gave
No comfort to the holy seeds that grope
Toward virtue; now the lost years twist a rope
Around my throat and conscience calls me knave.
Exalted God, in Thee life would have found
Renewed devotion, dark peace out of pain,

WHEREIN, THE LIGHT OF LIFE HAVING LEFT HIM, HE TURNS TO GOD

Death has put out the burning of the sun;
Her constant eyes his dark dominions keep:
Dust is my Lady — dust and a long sleep;
My bright elected laurels are undone:
I know my bliss and bitterness are one:
No more may passion in my pulses leap
From flame to frost, from bold to timorous creep,
With anguish crawl, with hope the wind outrun.
Out of Love's blind despotic hands who wastes
And hallows, loosed from Love's dear bitter bands,

WHEREIN HE CHAFES AT HIS BONDS AND IS CHIDED

On wings of meditation I ascend
To the celestial seat so often, some
Might think I hid a treasure in God's home,
The mortal veil abandoned at the end.
A sweet chill shakes my heart as I attend
The loveliest bell-tones pealed in Christendom,
Ringing, " Ah, friend, now that thou art become
So altered, I adore thee, ah, dear friend! "
She leads me to her Lord: straightway I kneel,
Proffering humble prayer that He permit
His perfect face and hers to profane eyes.

WHEREIN HE REALIZES WITH A START THE NEARNESS OF DEATH

My mirror's frequent fierce fidelity —
The spirit broken and the shrivelled skin,
The forces flagging — Nature's bulletin —
Have said, " No nonsense! Age demands her fee! "
Obedience to our natural destiny
Is always best: struggle — and time will win;
On a sudden, as the flame the wave sucks in,
The harsh truth drowns the blind untruth in me.
And clearly I perceive our vain life go,
That cannot constitute our true selves twice;

WHEREIN HER DEATH MARKED THE BEGINNING OF HIS OWN

Death hath no power over that dear face,
But it on death confers a dignity;
Lamp of my spirit! How well she teaches me!
Who learns to die may there his lesson trace.
That Holy One! Who spilled His blood apace,
But Who undid the bolts of Hell — even He
Drives from my soul death's dark anxiety:
Then welcome, Death! I would put on thy grace.
No dallying! It is high time I went;
Alas! how little hath my stay bestead
Since she, Madonna Laura, gave up breath:

WHEREIN DEATH WOULD BE SWEET

Each day to me seems as a thousand years
That I my dear and loyal guide pursue,
Who led me through the world and leads me through
By a proved way to life purged of its tears.
Nothing on this familiar earth appears
Tempting enough to lure me: light so new
Illuminates my heart, I cannot rue
Lost time, sweet sin, sick passion, sordid fears.
Not that I need to dread Death and his threats,
Which the Lord suffered with a sharper pain,
That, fixed, intrepid, I His road retain:

WHEREIN, WHILE ASLEEP, HE TELLS HIS LADY OF HIS TORMENT AND IS AWAKENED BY HER PITY

The sacred gust my long-afflicted slumber
Disturbs so gently, courage waxes double
To tell her of my past and present trouble,
With which I dared not, while she lived, encumber
Her heart: the first fierce look of Love's proud number
I publish, that first glance which burned to stubble
My green years; then, how bubble after bubble
Love burst, and how life daily grew more somber.
She speaks no word, but with the dew of pity

WHEREIN HE ANTICIPATES THEIR MOMENTARY REUNION

From hour to hour I seem to hear her calling —
My Lady calling! Gladly would I answer!
I feel decay within me like a cancer;
And am so changed — with more than gray years crawling —
Mine own eyes find me foreign and appalling
Like some old ghost, some withered necromancer;
How long must I pipe on or play the dancer
In this unholy jest with phantoms brawling?
O day of my deliverance when this prison
Shall split, the rock burst and I stand up-risen,