WHEREIN HIS PRAISES PROPOSE HER IMMORTALITY ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN

The ardour and the odour and dark wonder
Of my sweet laurel and her golden glamour
That offered quiet from the dusty clamour,
Death the Despoiler tramples down in thunder.
As when the moon presses the proud sun under,
So now my lights go out, my voices stammer;
On Death I cry to halt Death's heavy hammer —
With such black thoughts Love tears my heart asunder.
O lovely lady, brief the sleep you slumbered:
An instant only, then amid the numbered,

WHEREIN HE BEGS A CRUMB OF HER NEW BLESSEDNESS

Thou hast shown thine utmost, letting darkness pour,
O Demon Death, through Love's realm like a blot,
Lopping the lovely blossom of bergamot,
Quenching the light, locking the narrow door,
With what a hunger Death must hunger for
The qualities corruption touches not:
Her courage and her courtesy and what
Is else beyond that lean Inquisitor.
Gorged upon dust and bones, he burns with greed
For Heaven's half of her that like a sun
Dazzles the seraph and brings the angels near.

WHEREIN HE MEMORIALIZES GIACOMO COLONNA WHO DIED BEFORE PETRARCH COULD ANSWER A LETTER FROM HIM

Never shall I with eyes unmisted see,
Or with a tranquil and untremulous mind,
Those characters by Love's pure light defined,
And golden with the hand of Charity;
Spirit unspotted by earth's calumny,
You spread such sweetness to those left behind,
As once more with my wandering verses twined
The style which Death has long denied to me.
Another labour, more bright than the leaves
Of youth, I thought to show: what iron planet

WHEREIN A GLIMPSE OF LAURA'S HOUSE REVIVES HIS AGONY

Is this the nest, is this the sacred nest
In which my Phaenix plumed herself in gold
And purple? Who beneath her wings would fold
My heart — and still with sighs and rich unrest
Consumes it? O sweet sickness in my breast,
First source of my dear death which, uncontrolled,
Flames through my blood from that face aureoled
In its own light, where is that loveliest?
Unique on earth as now in heaven unique,
Me miserable and lonely you have left;
With awe and anguish always must I seek

WHEREIN HE REVISITS VAUCLUSE

Once more, soft winds, I feel you; and again
You sweet hills, I observe the dawn that gleams
Across your grassy summits; while your streams
Twist through your fragrant valleys like a stain
All silver... O blank hopes! O thoughts as vain!
Withered the grass; the water like my themes
As void, as desolate, as dark; the dreams
As dead, the house where only ghosts remain.
O Laura! Laura! In the dust to share
With thee the desperate escape! Is this,
O Love, thy proudest victory — to tear

VALEDICTORY

O swifter than the fawn my days have fled,
A dream of shadows; one look, wild, misleading,
Sums up my whole delight: come, end the reading,
With little sweet, with bitter surfeited!
O wretched world, of doubt and darkness bred,
Who trusts in thee is lost! My love, my pleading,
My hopes were thine: all dead with my heart bleeding,
With her heart dust among the indifferent dead!
The flesh outmoded, still she burns, and still
In her high heaven, a bright and deathless flower,

As some proud plant, torn up by frequent blows
Of biting spade or by the wind uprooted,
Whirls wide its green and lofty leaves unfruited,
Its roots all naked in the sunlight shows:
So Love for my despair another chose,
On whom for me the Muse a subject suited
Twists and contrives, heart's capture undisputed,
As on some trunk or wall the ivy grows.
That living laurel — where my tall thoughts nested,
Where sighed in sounds of fire my fervent grief,
Yet never moved a sympathetic leaf —
To heaven translated, in my soul arrested,

WHEREIN DEATH, IN ONE INSTANT, STRUCK AND STRIPPED HIM

Love opened up a tranquil anchorage
From turmoil and from tempest, promising
The silver years thoughts with a steadier wing,
Thoughts purged and proud with virtuous equipage.
She saw my true heart cleansed for heritage
Of its high faith, unclouded, comforting;
Ah, vicious Death, how quick wert thou to fling
Into gray dust the fruit of a long age!
The time had surely brought more life at length
When in her pure ear I should close confide
The ancient music of my heart's dear strength;

WHEREIN HE FINDS SOME CONSOLATION IN THE HOPES OF HER SYMPATHY

High time it was to find an armistice
From so much war by peace or truce — and both
Were imminent when Death who, nothing loath,
Levels all things, loomed up like Nemesis;
And as a cloud melts in a windy kiss,
So she, whose dear eyes guided my soul's growth,
To whom my mind has pledged eternal troth,
Forsook the Valley for the Precipice.
If only she had stayed, as I grew old,
Her tone had also changed, and no distrust
Would have obscured the love I should have told:

WHEREIN HIS PASSION SEEMED ON POINT TO PROSPER WHEN DEATH INTERVENED

All my green years and all my golden flower
Had passed: and in a kind of compromise
With pain my heart grew gray — though the bright dyes
Of life had not yet dimmed their pride and power.
Already my dear enemy, hour by hour,
Was quieting suspicion in the guise
Of gay, yet timid trust, and darting eyes
In delicate mockery that made me cower.
The time drew near at hand when Love may dwell
With Chastity, and burning side by side
The lovers in each other may confide.