English

WHEREIN THE ACCUSES LAURA'S EYES OF KEEPING HIM ALIVE ONLY TO TORTURE HIM

As soon as the good bowman slacks his bow,
From far off he discerns which arrow flies
Wide of the mark — a shot he must despise —
And which to its intended point will go:
Even so, my Lady, your eyes struck, even so
You felt, surely you felt your piercing eyes
Plunge deep into my life: from which must rise
In tears the heart's eternal overflow.
And sure am I that even then you said:
" Unhappy lover, to what shall passion lead?

WHEREIN HE WRITES A RECANTATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY SONNET

Always I hold that window in my hate
Whence Love discharged a thousand shafts at will,
Because not one of them sufficed to kill:
For death is good when life is rich and great
But this existence in a prison state
Feeds me the bitter bread of endless ill!
And more's the grief that stays immortal still,
Since soul from heart can never separate.
O miserable, who should be most aware
By long experience now that from his track

ON AN ANNIVERSARY, SEEING LAURA AT THE HOUR AND PLACE OF THEIR FIRST MEETING

Ever I loved, and love as much as ever,
And day by day shall only love the more
That lovely place where often I implore
Peace from Love's fierce and unremitting fever;
My mind is set to love the swords that sever
Vile passions from it, and the hour it tore
Away, and her whose face makes the heart soar,
Whose pure example points to high endeavour.
Who ever thought to see them all combine,
Now on this side, now that, my heart to storm —

DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE POET AND HIS EYES P.

Weep, eyes, accompany the fiery heart
That suffers death, yet knows the fault is yours. E.
Weep? Yea, and saltier is the flood that pours
For others' pain than for the bitter smart
We feel! P. Through you Love first applied his art
And still through you his tyrannous sway endures. E.
True, yet the heart's own hope made overtures
That left him bare to Death's consuming dart. P.
The guilt does not, as you think, equal fall
On heart and eyes, for you, at first sight, were

WHEREIN, THOUGH NOT INVULNERABLE, HE REFUSES TO FEEL FURTHER TORMENT OF LOVE

Till winter's silver frost my temples harrow,
Where shade by shade Time mixes gray with grayer,
Danger will dog me still, ah grim gainsayer,
So long as Love keeps finger upon arrow.
Let Love his tortures practice on a sparrow!
I do not dread that treacherous trick-player:
My heart will not fly open for the slayer
To plant his blood-red barbs deep in its marrow!
Mine eyes are stones through which tears cannot blunder,

WHEREIN HE IS RESOLVED TO QUIT LAURA IF — IF —

Yet was I never by Love wearied out,
My Lady, nor shall while my life may last;
But of self-scorn, that date is overpast,
And of continual tears I have a doubt:
I want a sepulchre, white-walled about,
Whose marble, when the soul the flesh hath cast,
Shall keep the secret of your name as fast,
Rather than that my death the reason shout.
However, if a heart of amorous faith
Can, short of torment, feed your savage heart,
May it now please you mercy to impart.

WHEREIN HE CONFESSETH HIS FAULTS AND SEEKETH AFTER HIS SAVIOUR

So grinds the load, so groan I constantly
With my heart's folly and habitual plaint,
That sore I dread the way will see me faint
And hand me to the Original Enemy.
Once came a great and welcome Friend to free
By grace unspeakable my soul from taint,
But fled too soon in spite of all restraint
And left me gazing after wistfully.
Only his gentle voice still seems to say:
" O ye that labour, lo, here is the way!
Come unto me when other refuge closes! "

WHEREIN PASSION INCREASETH WITH THE YEARS AND REMEDY IS NONE

If, of this fourteenth year of sighs, the end
And middle match the opening, then the air
Cannot sustain me, shade cannot defend,
So mount the fiery passions everywhere:
For Love, with whom I cannot half contend,
Beneath whose harness I must breathe despair,
So rides me through these eyes, which I expend
To mine own grief, little remains to spare.
Thus, day by day, I feel my spirits fail,
And yet so secretly that none may guess

WHEREIN HE ENVIES PYGMALION

When Simon at my wish the lofty dream
Conceived, which put the pencil in his hand,
Had he, who could such loveliness command,
But added voice and intellect, it would seem
This breast a storm of sighs were spared, that deem
Of little worth what strikes the world as grand:
Since, to my foolish sight she looks so bland,
I cannot but read promise in the beam.
When, holding further parley with her eyes,
Meseems almost she smiles as if she heard;

ON SIMON MEMMI'S PORTRAIT OF LAURA

Had Polycletus or his rivals gazed
A thousand years on her who shames all art,
A thousand years had shown the lesser part
Of that great beauty which has left me dazed.
But Simon sure, in Paradise amazed,
Whence came this gentle Lady of my heart,
Saw her and traced her loveliness as chart
And proof on earth that there such beauty blazed.
Truly the work was one in Heaven alone
To be imagined, not among us here
Where the flesh clouds the soul; by Heaven's grace