English

WHEREIN LOVE LINGERS WITH HIM, WATCHING LAURA WALK ABROAD

Here stand we, Love, our glory to regard:
Behold how she surpasses Nature! Stare
The while such sweetness sheds its showers there!
Such drench of dazzling heaven is earth's reward!
Look — purple, pearls and gold in yard on yard
Glitter and richly twist and weave a snare!
How her feet twinkle, her eyes burn the air,
Flashing the dark hills all alive and starred!
The green turf and the thousand-tinted flowers
Under that ancient holm-oak's high pavilion,

WHEREIN MERELY TO LOOK ON LAURA SUSTAINS HIM

As God is life forever and forever,
The perfect Fullness, every gift expressing,
So, dear my Lady, in you is all blessing,
My few years flow to you as to a river.
Never have eyes so richly gazed — Ah never —
If that eyes to the heart make true confessing —
O pure and lovely Spirit past possessing,
O leveller of hope and high endeavour!
Nor would I more entreat if less of haste
To leave impelled thee: if, as legends tell,
And in good faith, are some that live by smell,

WHEREIN HE RELATES THE VISION OF THE FAWN

Hard by a laurel, between two running streams,
At the young season's youngest budding dawn,
In a green space I saw a milk-white fawn
With horns as golden as an angel's dreams;
Remote and magical, with little gleams
Of light around its head, it wandered on:
Leaving my labours, like a miner drawn
By gold, I followed — foolishly, it seems.
" Let none impede me! " — round its collar ran
The legend pricked in pearl and diamond —
" By Caesar's charge I wander fancy-fond. "

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIS STATE TO A STORM-RACKED SHIP

My vessel, cargoed with oblivion, cleaves
The boisterous deep, under cold midnight skies,
And mine old enemy, Love, the tiller plies,
While Scylla hisses and Charybdis heaves;
At every oar imagination weaves
Fancies that both the storm and death despise;
A humid and eternal wind of sighs
Wails through my sails and shatters as it grieves.
Torrents of tears and clouds of chilling scorn
Wash and relax the shrouds so overworn,
Of ignorance and error intertwined;

WHEREIN THE SUN, BY HIS SETTING, HIDES THE HOUSE OF LAURA FROM HIS EYES

O nurturing Sun, that leaf of all my love,
First loved by thee, in her sweet earth alone
Blossoms unparalleled since, all unknown,
On Adam burst the splendour men dream of.
O pause to gaze at her! Though I approve
And do entreat thy dalliance, thou art flown —
Or poised for flight: the mountain dusk is down,
The day beneath proud fillets doth remove.
The shadows from those gentle mountains falling,
Where sparkles my sweet fire, where bravely grew

WHEREIN ONLY THE ANCIENT ELDERS OF SONG ARE WORTHY TO SING HER VIRTUES

The youthful Alexander at the tomb
Of fierce Achilles sighed awhile and said:
" O Fortunate! whom Homer trumpeted
Over the earth and lifted from our doom! "
But Ah! beyond oblivion and the gloom
Of dusty death shall that adorable head
Of gold go down to sleep ungarlanded
Save of the faint few roses I presume
To weave upon her? Homer and Orpheus,
Mantua's shepherd poet should proclaim
The beauty that were wind and fire and flame

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIS LADY TO THE PHoeNIX OF ARABIA

This magic Phaenix with the golden plumes
Fashions so rare and natural a ring
To deck that throat, that whitest loveliest thing,
It melts all hearts and most mine own consumes;
Also it shapes a diadem which blooms,
Blinding the air with light; from thence his sting
Of liquid fire Love sucks whose flame can cling
Close to the heart's bone through the iciest glooms.
Bordered with blue, a brilliant purple vest
Sprinkled with roses, veils her shoulders: none

WHEREIN LAURA IS GRAVELY ILL

Love, Nature, and that sweet soul's gentleness
Where every pure and lofty virtue dwells,
Are leagued against my peace. Love strains and swells
His malice to destroy me or distress;
The threads which bind the slender nakedness
Of Nature to the earth are weak. Farewells
To the world move that proud heart which rebels
Humbly against the burdens that oppress.
So falters and so fades her spirit's power
Which should inform the flesh like some white flower,

WHEREIN HE IS AT THE MERCY OF HER MOODS

If thus the warm look of my Lady wound,
If in her sprightly speech such perils spring,
If, when she parts her lips to smile or sing,
Love can my senses and my soul confound —
Alas! what refuge if those eyes were bound
By fault or fate, locked to all pitying?
Those eyes to which my life, my fortunes cling,
Shut off from mercy and in darkness drowned?
And if my spirit trembles and grows cold
Whenever shadows sweep their moody plumes
Across her forehead, such a fear is old:

WHEREIN HE EXPATIATES UPON LOVE AND JEALOUSY

Capricious Love now locks the heart in frost,
Now fills the marrow of the heart with fire,
Until we cannot say if hope inspire,
Or fear; if flame has won or ice has lost.
In June I quake and chatter, and am tossed
With flame in mid-December, torn entire
With jealousy, or thrilled with sweet desire,
As if she cloaked some rival to my cost.
But my sick heat consumes me day and night
The more as being all my own; nor thought
Nor poet's tongue can grasp the grim delight