English

WHEREIN HER EVERY GESTURE IS DIVINE

Love and I, both filled with marvelling,
As one who sees a thing incredible,
Look on this one that laughs or casts a spell
Of speech, this lovely and unrivalled thing.
From the sweet brows that spread a perfect wing
So gleam my stars they make a Heaven of Hell,
Give the blind lamps, the deaf a silver bell,
The mute a tongue to blow Love trumpeting!
What miracle it is when on the grass
She sits like some white flower, or to her brave

WHEREIN HE PRAISES THE LOVELINESS AND VIRTUE OF LAURA

In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant thought
Did Nature find the model whence she drew
That delicate dazzling image where we view
Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought?
What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, sought
In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew? —
Though her chief virtue with my death is fraught.
He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,

WHEREIN HER IMAGE IS FIXED FOREVER IN HIS HEART

Wherever I rest or turn my tired eyes
To cool them of desires that draw them still,
Love paints the lovely Lady at his will
That passion may stay green; and, being wise,
Deep pity with sweet anguish Love applies —
For generous ardours gentle bosoms fill —
While, equally constrained, my fond ears thrill
To her soft syllables, her seraph sighs.
Love and pure Truth were both in league to tell
The virtues without fellows on this sphere,

WHEREIN HE RECOLLECTS HER IN HER TEARS

That always-honoured ever-bitter day
Hath so engraved her image in my breast,
That there it burns, there only is possessed
Of flame nor wit nor word can quite convey:
Such fluent grief I saw her face portray,
Such mournful soft despairs my ears confessed,
I dared not think a mortal tongue expressed
What must have gladdened God with its dismay.
Gold glowed her hair, her face glowed sun on snow,
Eyebrow and lash gleamed black, her eyes blazed stars

WHEREIN ALL NATURE IS THE THEATRE TO HER SORROW

I saw on earth angelic grace revealed,
Celestial charms which mortals seldom see,
Such as rejoice and rend the memory;
All else untrue, vain, trivial, repealed.
Now to dark tears I saw those bright eyes yield
That often blanched the sun with jealousy;
And from those lips a voiceless agony
To move the mountain, bid the flood be sealed.
Wit, firmness, pity, love and excellence
Knitted to grief so sweet a concert made,
As never yet struck or subdued the sense;

WHEREIN LAURA WEEPS

Never was Jupiter so set on thunder,
Nor Caesar never so resolved to shatter
But Mercy like a blast would swoop to scatter
The flame, or tear the hand and sword asunder.
Milady wept: my Lord said (O sweet blunder!)
That I should see her, hear her sorrows flatter
My soul with listening, and thrill to the matter
And very marrow of my bones with wonder.
To me Love pointed, carved into my breast
That bright and silver tear, those mysteries
Cut with a diamond at Love's behest,

WHEREIN LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE ARE HEAVENLY DERIVATIVES

The stars, the heavens, the very elements
Have joined their utmost, all their skill and care
To make a thing unutterably fair,
A harmony to which the sun consents,
To which all Nature lends her influence,
Noble, unique — death to the mortal stare —
Love pours such flame of sweetness on the air
And from her eyes such dazzling opulence.
The very atmosphere, thus purified
By their dear flame, with candour kindles so,

WHEREIN HIS ANGUISH BESEECHES PITY OR DEATH

Go, burning sighs, go to that frosty breast,
Split the dense ice which laughs at charity;
And if to mortal prayer high Heaven agree,
Let death or mercy put my grief at rest!
Go, tenderest thoughts! Reveal your tenderest
To her, Our Lady who disdains to see:
If still her pride, if still my destiny
Offend, we shall our mischief know at least.
Go in some perfect interval and tell
How dark, how desperate has been our woe,
While she remains unmoved and equable.

WHEREIN HE PROTESTS HE CANNOT MUCH LONGER ENDURE HER EXTREME WHIMS

Than breast of bear, or tiger's heart more fierce
Looms that angelic shape in human guise,
Who, between dread and hope, from songs to sighs
So shakes me, torturing doubt to savage tears.
It cannot be but soon, if thus she veers
Between the two extremes contrariwise,
By the sweet poison that her whims devise,
My life, O Love, will be in sad arrears.
No longer can my virtue, ravaged thin
'Twixt such contending, hot and cold at once,

WHEREIN LOVE GUIDES HIM TO REASON

Never fled shaken mariner to port
From the black welter, from the hurricane,
As from the mutinous tumult of the brain
I tear away — from thoughts of dark resort;
Nor ever blazed a bolt from heaven's fort
Blasting the mortal sight, as with rich pain
And pride and passion burned that matchless twain
Wherein Love tips the gold barbs of his sport.
Throned in his own light there he lords it, there —
Not blind, but quivered, naked — or almost: