WHEREIN HE BITTERLY RECALLS HIS BLINDNESS AT FAREWELL

O mind, that of your doom aware — too late,
Chilled by the high hawk's shadow in the sun,
Devoured the lovely face you fixed upon
As though the hawk's plunge to anticipate!
From her dear ways, words, looks compassionate,
From strange and sudden tenderness of tone
You should have known, alas, you should have known
This was Love's final fierce pontificate!
O miserable soul! O poison sweet
That through my eyes engendered this bright death,
Gazing on hers I shall no longer greet!

THE SENSE FAINTS PICTURING HER

The high new wonder that enriched our days,
Dawned on our world, but would not dally there,
Heaven revealed, only to make men stare,
Then snatched back in its own bright world to blaze:
That to posterity I paint and praise
Her beauty is Love's will, Love's early snare;
Though now wit, time, pen, ink are weak to bear
The lovely burden and the long delays.
My rhymes pulse slowly for all Love's impelling;
I feel it, and whoever here and now,
By speech or poem will the truth avow,

WHEREIN TO DEPICT HER VIRTUES IS FUTILE

She, for whose lovely inaccessible sake
I haunt the Sorga and the Arno spurn,
Knows how the palaces and pleasures turn
Bitter as gall, and how the heart will break.
Though I have yearned to paint her and to make
Her beauty known and deathless — and still yearn —
So that like me posterity may burn,
Her sweet face still eludes — the phrases ache.
All those familiar graces which in her
Were but the stars a prodigal sky repeats —
Of these I may perhaps some shadow dare;

WHEREIN HIS ONE WISH IS TO JOIN HER IN PARADISE

Alas! that time is fled, that time is ended
Which poured sweet pity on Love's fiercest fever!
And fled she whom I weep and sing forever —
Though not the tears, the lute left unbefriended!
That face angelical is far ascended,
But, soaring, pierced my heart — My heart? Ah, never! —
With such a light as from the flesh to sever
And split and seek her by her dreams attended.
Half shares her earth, half to her heaven is risen,
Where now she stands triumphant, crowned with showers

WHEREIN THERE IS NO SOLACE IN NATURE

Not summer stars in a hushed violet sky
Throbbing, nor white sails on a violet sea,
Nor glittering knights riding through greenery,
Nor long-eyed stags that dizzily flash by,
Nor tidings that could make a dead man cry,
Nor Love apparelled in royal melody,
Nor, by soft fountains beside grass and tree,
Girls tall as angels singing where they lie —
Of these may none ever unlock my heart
Well fastened with the dust of her slim hands
Beneath the stone that spilled my light at length

WHEREIN THE NIGHTINGALE'S MELODY REMINDS HIM OF HIS OWN HAPLESS PLIGHT

That nightingale, who weeps so sweetly, grieves
Perhaps for his lost young or his loved mate,
Drowning the sky with sweetness, and the late
Dark violet valleys and the trembling leaves;
And all night long he in his sorrow cleaves
To me and mine, recalling my harsh fate —
But I have myself to commiserate
Alone, who deemed an angel safe from thieves.
O what an easy dupe the trusting fool!
Who ever would have thought those lamps more bright

THE SPRING RETURNS, BUT NOT TO HIM RETURNS

The spring returns, the spring wind softly blowing
Sprinkles the grass with gleam and glitter of showers,
Powdering pearl and diamond, dripping with flowers,
Dropping wet flowers, dancing the winter's going;
The swallow twitters, the groves of midnight are glowing
With nightingale music and madness; the sweet fierce powers
Of Love flame up through the earth; the seed-soul towers
And trembles; Nature is filled to overflowing...
The spring returns, but there is no returning

WHEREIN, HOWEVER UNWORTHY, HE HAS DARED TO GAZE AT HER GLORY AND SING

I dared to think my wings could proudly sweep —
Not through my power but through omnipotent grace —
Stirruped with music to the golden place
Where Love and Death their double bastions keep.
I flounder now: I cannot make that leap,
That glittering arc through soaring silver space —
" Who swoops too far may fall upon his face, "
I said, " The barricades of Heaven are steep. "
That height the scope of genius cannot span,
How much the less my heavy gait and tongue:

WHEREIN HE ENTREATS HER TO GLANCE DOWN ON HIM AND HIS GRIEF

O lovely spirit, flown from a lovelier snare
Than any Nature knitted in her loom,
Look down from thy new brightness, see the gloom
That eats my heart out, pity my despair!
The false fog that deluded once I tear
Asunder from my soul; no dreads consume
Thee now: O turn thine eyes, regard my doom
And drink the fire with which I drench the air!
Gaze on this rock from which the Sorga flows —
Dost thou not see me bowed with my black load,
Weeping these years that find me here alone?

WHEREIN HE ENTREATS HER TO GLANCE DOWN ON HIM AND HIS GRIEF

O lovely spirit, flown from a lovelier snare
Than any Nature knitted in her loom,
Look down from thy new brightness, see the gloom
That eats my heart out, pity my despair!
The false fog that deluded once I tear
Asunder from my soul; no dreads consume
Thee now: O turn thine eyes, regard my doom
And drink the fire with which I drench the air!
Gaze on this rock from which the Sorga flows —
Dost thou not see me bowed with my black load,
Weeping these years that find me here alone?