WHEREIN HE LAMENTS AND REJOICES IN THE TRANSLATION OF HIS LAUREL TO HEAVEN

That which in perfume and in lustre vied
With the translucent odorous Orient —
Fruits, flowers, herbs and leaves of every scent —
Through whom the West obtained the wreath of pride:
My lovely laurel which has deified
All grace, all beauty, virtue's tower and tent,
Lo, underneath its shadowy firmament
God and my Goddess sitting side by side!
Still in that cherished plant have I reposed
My worthiest of thoughts: in fire, in frost,

WHEREIN LAURA'S IMMORTAL ATTRIBUTES RESOLVE HIM TO THE PAINFUL PURSUIT OF VIRTUE

O Time! O dizzy Heavens! that in your spinning
Weave many a snare, deception, trick and tangle;
O Days! wind-swift, O Days that scheme and wrangle,
I see, I feel, I know your treacherous dinning!
Yet I absolve you — mine is all the sinning:
For Nature winged you, while, like bells that jangle,
The eyes she gave me I abuse; I mangle
My heart through them, and grief is all my winning.
The hour will come, perhaps even now is over,

WHEREIN NATURE, HAVING ENDOWED HER BEYOND MORTAL WOMEN, SNATCHED HER AWAY FROM MORTAL EYES

This gift of loveliness which lures the world,
Called fragile, transient, false, a wind, a shade,
Never its spells so perilously displayed
Until this Lady came and I was hurled
Headlong: Nature never her flag unfurled
To honour one in beauty's bright parade —
Now one with all of Nature stands arrayed
Like Venus when the sea-foam sang and swirled.
Forgive me, ladies, yet I do declare it,
Her equal never lived nor ever shall

WHEREIN HIS FOOLISH HEART IS FORCED CRUELLY TO RECALL THE DATE OF HER DEATH

My mind turns with her: always she is there,
Whence Lethe could not blot her loveliness,
Such as I saw her first in the first stress
Of spring, with spring's pure spirit all aware:
So still I see her, still with that coy air,
Withdrawn into herself from the world's press:
I cry, " She, she it is! Ambassadress
From Death to Life! O speak to my despair! "
Now she makes answer, now her mouth is mute —
Upstarting from my revery, my heart speaks:

WHEREIN THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD CAME AND WENT WITH LAURA

Amid a lovely thousand one I saw,
Whom seeing — and these shapes no fancy bred —
Instantly I was seized by amorous dread,
Then flamed with ardour, then was hushed with awe.
No fleck was in her, never mortal flaw,
No earthly happiness her hunger fed;
My soul, constrained to follow where she led,
Flinched at the blue pavilions of His law.
Alas, her sweep outsoared all wings, all cries,
And in a little space she sped from sight:
The very thought still finds me frozen numb.

WHEREIN HE HOPES SHE MAY REWARD THE OPEN PURITY AND PERMANENCE OF HIS LOVE

If honest love can merit recompense,
If pity still can do what she has done,
Mercy is mine, for clearer than the sun
My faith wins earth's and Laura's audience.
She feared me on a time; now confidence,
Though fearful to believe, believes me none
The less; where word or look before had won,
Now speaks my whole soul, stripped of all pretence.
And so I hope the high stars may resound
With her sighs doubling mine, on me the while
Compassion turns a tender dreamy smile.

WHEREIN HE HOPES TO FIND HER BESIDE HIM IN THE DEATH HE FEELS AT HAND

Go, grief-bewildered rhymes! Go kneel and knock
On the cold stone that locks all I held dear,
Calling her by her name! Ah, Heaven may hear
And her soul listen — though the marble mock!
Tell her I sicken of life; tell her the shock
Of the world's welter is more than I can bear:
I follow her feet like flowers everywhere,
Her footprints follow — up to that grim rock.
Singing of her incessantly I wander;
Of her alive, her dead I weave my verse —

WHEREIN HE REPROACHES HIMSELF THAT HE FAILED TO READ THE FATAL MESSAGE IN HER EYES

That look, so sweet, so noble and so dear,
Seemed to entreat: " Take what thou canst while here:
For here thou shalt not see me, till thou plunge
From earth to heaven, a plumed charioteer. "
O swift intelligence that could outlunge
The leopard, yet could not see Death expunge
The lovely legend, in her silent tear
How didst thou fail to stop the hyssop sponge!
With tacit sacred flame illustrious,
Her eyes said, " Friendly lights that for so long

OF HER FAREWELL AND HIS BLINDNESS

O day, O hour, O moment of farewell!
O stars conspiring then to beggar me!
O look too true where, had I eyes to see,
More than that moment stood inexorable!
But now I know, alas, I know too well!
Then I believed (ah, blind credulity!)
It was a temporary loss; that she —
What hope of all my hopes but heard that knell!
For, even then, the high doom was ordained
Forever to put out my life's pure flame:
Her sad face held the verdict of the skies;
I missed the piteous portent there that strained

WHEREIN HE IS HAUNTED BY REMEMBRANCE OF HER EYES AT THEIR FAREWELL MEETING

Alas, the last of my bright days was come!
(How few, how few the bright days I could show!)
My blood went cold, my heart's heart turned to snow —
The icy hint of my long martyrdom.
As one whose fitful pulses must succumb
To some recurrent fever's imminent throe,
Even so I felt — yet could I then foreknow
How close my poor joys hovered on their tomb?
Those glorious eyes that now drink the rich light
Of heaven in gusts of life and glory poured,