English

WHEREIN SOARING IN AN ECSTASY OF THOUGHT TO HEAVEN HE ENCOUNTERS LAURA

An ecstasy of thought upraised me where
She wanders, that shall no more walk with me:
There! — lovelier, humbler — there, ah there I see —
I see her in the third celestial sphere!
She takes my hand and whispers, " With me here
Thou shalt again taste pure felicity:
For I am she that pained thee, even she
That perished in the blossom of her year.
My bliss no mortal hope has ever spanned;
Thee only I await, and that sweet veil

WHEREIN HE TORTURES HIS SOUL WITH REMINISCENCE IN VAUCLUSE

Valley familiar with my desperate din,
Stream which my tears now feed, have fed before;
Beasts of the brake, bright birds and silver floor
Of Sorga friendly to the jewelled fin;
Air hushed with sighs like some soft medicine;
Delightful path whose sad hints I explore;
Hill that once pleased me — and shall please no more —
Whither Love tugs at me to enter in:
You, you are still unchanged! How changed, alas,
Am I who, from a height so rare, so rich,

WHEREIN HE ENVIES EARTH, HEAVEN AND THE GRAVE THEIR GOLDEN TREASURE

What grudge against the greedy earth I bear
That in his bleak and treacherous embrace
Retains the golden lustre of that face
Whose single glance could overwhelm despair!
What grudge against the saints with yellow hair
Who seemed so anxious from that mould of grace
To call the spirit to its proper place,
To share delights only the few may share!
What grudge against the angels that can weave
Their sister songs with hers, her soul receive

WHEREIN HE RECALLS HER GRACES AND QUALITIES AND BEWAILS HIS GRIEVOUS LOSS

Where is that forehead whose least gentle Yes
Could sweep my trembling heart, pluck all the strings!
And the brows arched like two thin little wings,
Those planet eyes that searched my wilderness?
Where that true worth and wit, true tenderness
In thought and speech — dear irretrievable things?
Where those rare graces, richer than a king's
Whose single magic all my moods confess?
Where is the fragrant shade, the shade so sweet

WHEREIN TO RECALL THE PAST IS TO AUGMENT THE DESPAIR OF THE PRESENT

When I look back upon the fugitive time
Which swept my noblest ecstasies to doom,
And spilled the fire and trampled the white plume
And weighted down with tears the wings of rhyme;
And when I see Love turned to pantomime,
The dream derided, and the double bloom
Of flesh and spirit betrayed — half to the tomb,
And half to heaven — O cruel celestial crime! —
Then like one drugged and rifled, I awake,
And still in stupour, feel the wind and stare

WHEREIN HER DEATH HAS FOREVER RUPTURED THE RARE ALLIANCE OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE

Two noble enemies in one soul enshrined —
Beauty and Virtue, in such perfect peace
That never rebellion broke their quiet lease,
Nor stained the stainless marble of that mind —
By Death now shattered and now disentwined,
One graces the celestial mysteries
In pride and glory; one beneath the trees
Shuts eyes that shook the world once, bright and blind.
That soft demeanour, that rare modest speech
Moving from lofty places, that sweet flame

WHEREIN HE PROTESTETH HE CAN SING ONLY OF HER

Now I indulge where once myself accused,
Nay, more, I do esteem, regard as dear
This noble prison, this sweet-and-bitter fear
Which for so long in secret I refused.
Invidious Sisters, cruelly you used
That rare and golden frame where light and clear
Twisted my bonds which made even Death appear
Lovely and strange and pleasantly bemused.
For never a soul in its impulsive days,
However proud and plumed with warm delight,
But would exchange the fury and the blaze

WHEREIN HE CONSOLES HIS ANGUISH WITH THE HOPE OF HER SOLICITUDE

O how my thoughts choiring together made
Sweet consonant reason concerning her, as thus:
" It may be that the lilies dolorous
Chill her ... even now! ... Or that she is afraid
We falter. " But since that high-summoned maid
Fulfills His love, robbing the world and us
Of gold, perhaps her mouth grows murmurous,
Moaning, " I feel the flame that keeps you flayed. "
O loveliest miracle! O favoured mind!
O beauty without blemish, without blame!

WHEREIN HER DEATH HAS LEFT HIM ONLY THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR

She stepped into my heart so vividly,
A thing of light and warmth! — as, all unknown,
A princess, having wandered from her throne,
Might crowd a peasant's hut with courtesy.
And she is dead! — and dead my soul in me;
She storms the stars! — and I could turn a stone
To blood and tears of blood: but there is none
To tell love's pain and my soul's poverty.
These plead too deep for any ears save mine,
Who sing, with equal emptiness oppressed,

WHEREIN HE REGRETS THAT, HAVING WRITTEN HIS SONNETS TO ASSUAGE HIS OWN SORROW, HE HAD NOT LABOURED TO RENDER THEM WORTHIER OF THEIR RENOWN

Ah, had I ever thought the world would care
To hear my sorrows and my hopes rehearse,
I should have wrought more cunning in my verse
Under the dark compulsion of despair.
Dead is my Muse who by a golden hair
Strangles the soul of song and weaves a curse
On my proud power as on my universe,
Choking the words that would my grief declare.
And, of a truth, my overwhelming aim