English

WHEREIN HE REGRETS HIS LOSS OF LIBERTY AND CONFESSES HIS PRESENT VASSALAGE

Ah Liberty, so lovely, so denied!
Alas, how well you teach my bitter heart
To mourn that peace it knew before Love's dart
Smote me the great wound perilous in my side!
Mine eyes are bandaged and bewitched, the pride
And power of reason dully draw apart,
Shun every task, turn blind and deaf to ARt,
By my own folly poisoned and defied.
Nothing but what pertains to her, my death,
Attracts my ears; and from my tongue there goes

WHEREIN, HAVING ONCE FALLEN, HE IS FORCED TO THE ETERNAL SLAVERY OF LOVE

So, with perpetual expectation spent,
And in this lingering war of sighs defeated,
I scorn desires and hate the hopes repeated,
And loathe the fetters of my discontent;
But that pure face within my soul deep-seated,
Stamped there, with every motion evident,
Hedges me in, refuses to relent,
Proves incomplete an agony completed.
This marked my doom when liberty's hard highway
Was like another Eden barred with flame:

WHEREIN HE COMPLAINS OF LAURA THAT, AWARE OF HIS PASSION, SHE FEIGNS NOT TO KNOW IT

Could I in living lines my thoughts enclose
As in my heart I shut their shadows in,
No soul so savage but my song would win
To pity and to burning Ah's and Oh's.
But you, dear fatal eyes, that dealt the blows
Against which shield and helmet proved too thin,
You see me through and through stripped to the skin,
Though never I lament my secret woes.
And still, since through my heart your high look pours

WHEREIN HE EXPLAINS WHY THE LOVER TURNS PALE AS DEATH BEFORE THE BELOVED, AND YET JOYS IN IT

When through the eyes deep in the heart's core looms
The fatal image, other thoughts depart;
Those virtues which are rooted in the heart
Leave all the limbs like dead things out of tombs.
From the first miracle a second blooms,
For the great function (such is Nature's art),
Routed and fugitive, will reach some part
Which feeds revenge and soothes the exile's dooms.
Wherefore the colour of death's in both our faces,

WHEREIN LOVE FORETELLS THE POET OF HIS RETURN TO LAURA AND POETRY

Write — so Love told my heart and often said —
Write what thou seest large in letters of gold,
That white as ashes is the flock I fold,
And in a moment made alive and dead.
Time was thy spirit felt my power spread
A public proof to lovers young and old;
When other passions found in thee a hold,
I soon caught up with thee, though thou hadst fled.
And if the eyes where first I stood revealed,
Those brilliant eyes where my sweet flag unfurled,

CONCERNING THE LAMENTABLE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA

Weep, women, and with you weep Love as well!
Weep, lovers everywhere, a various throng!
Since he is dead, who while he lived had sung
So valiantly of Love! O ring his knell!
For me, my dear entreaties must compel
This cruel dolour not to check my tongue
Of its melodious tears nor make less long
The heart's moan that shall lighten the heart's hell.
Rhymes, weep, and verses, do you also weep!
Since Messer Cino, of love's fragrant line

WHEREIN HE CONDOLES WITH HIS BROTHER GHERARDO ON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF A LADY HE LOVED

The lovely lady thou didst love so greatly
Hath from our midst too soon, too soon departed
To take her place among the splendid-hearted
Whose virtue shed such light upon us lately.
No human bliss or bane her station stately
Can touch or taint: come, stand again, new-started,
New-consecrated in God's path, new-charted
In the bright flight that speeds to Heaven so straightly!
Thus, from the heavier burden liberated,

WHEREIN HE EXALTS HER BEAUTY AND AVERS THE PERMANENCE OF HIS PASSION

Golden upon the wind her loose hair streaming,
Twisted into a thousand curls was shaken;
And from her eyes, which seldom now awaken
To answer mine, a fiery light was gleaming;
Ah! — was it fancy? — but with wistful seeming,
Her lovely face by pity's tint was taken:
What marvel that my heart, so long Love's beacon,
Should flame out, fueled so by Love's fierce dreaming?
She was no mortal in her stately moving,
But stepped an angel; and her accents glowing

WHEREIN HE INFORMS CERTAIN LADIES OF THE ADVANTAGES OF LOVE'S DURESS

Fleeing the prison where these many years
Love held me in a sort of heavenly hell, —
Ladies, the story were too long to tell,
How my new freedom crushed me with new fears:
My heart felt anguish fiercer than Love's tears;
Loveless, it could not live a day: then fell
Again on me that Traitor, masked so well
He had deceived a wiser than his peers.
Wherefore, with frequent sighs turning my soul
Back, I have cried, " Ah, Christ! the yoke and chains

WHEREIN HE EXHORTS LOVERS TO FLY FROM LOVE BETIMES

Since my hope takes too long upon the way
And life has all too short a time to stay,
I wish with all my heart I had perceived
Sooner, and fled as soon and swift away —
And fly I do, though I feel sore aggrieved
In my left side where Love his worst achieved;
But safe at last, though on my face his sway
Is plainly written — not to be retrieved.
Wherefore I warn you that yet walk his road,
Turn your blind steps aside; and ye inflamed