WHEREIN HE REMEMBERS

So brief the time, the thought so fugitive
Which Laura in her death to me affords
These cannot cure a grief more sharp than swords;
Yet, when she lights my dream, pain cannot live.
Love, from whose torture there is no reprieve,
Trembles to see my soul drawn heavenwards
By her, my soul where her face, her voice lords
The tyranny which he was first to weave.
As rules the mistress sovereign in her house,
So from my heavy heart her quiet brows
Scatter each portent to the wind and foam.

WHEREIN HE CRIES OUT UPON DEATH AND FINDS HIS ONLY RESPITE IN VISIONS

You have outraged, O Death, the sweetest face
That ever I knew, and drowned the deepest eyes;
Forcing the seals and shattering the device
Of a noble spirit, breaking the golden vase!
A flash — and I am stricken: O most base!
On those too lovely lips your thumb's weight lies,
That talked such music! And you bear my cries,
And I go blind with tears from place to place.
Assuredly my Lady helps me then
When Love and Pity lead her where I stand;

WHEREIN HE EXPRESSES HIS GRATITUDE THAT FROM TIME TO TIME SHE VISITS HIM IN VISIONS

Soul of my soul, how often you return
Bearing in your small hands the gift of peace
Like perfume; Death has cancelled his dark lease
Upon those eyes, renewed them, bade them burn!
Ah, God be praised that your bliss does not spurn
My blackness, but with radiant increase
Of light illumines grief until it sees
Again your lonely haunts, your lovely urn!
Look you, how here, where so long I had lifted
A joyous voice, I pour laments instead

WHEREIN HER BEAUTY STILL HONOURS AND HAUNTS HIS SOLITUDE

How often from my own soul I have fled,
Or from the world to some sweet sombre place —
Only to feel the hot tears scald my face!
Only to hear them beat the grass like lead!
How often, my dark heart inhabited
With ghosts, I go through shadowed glens to trace
Once more in thought that glory and that grace
Which honour Death! ... Ah Death, that I were dead!
How often, gleaming like some water-sprite
From Sorga's breast, I see my soul's delight;
Or watch her in some river-revery;

IN SELF-EXILE AT VAUCLUSE

Nowhere before in one miraculous hour
Have I so clearly seen my soul's desire;
Nowhere before felt freedom lift me higher
In passionate music and in lyric power;
Never proved valley's dark sequestered bower
So perfect for the sigh, the singing fire:
Not even Cyprus could Love so inspire,
Not even Gnidos build Love such a tower.
Everything breathes and spins a single spell
Upon me, whispering love: the sky, the time,
The winds, the birds, water and boughs all rhyme

WHEREIN LAURA IS FOREVER A PRESENT APPARITION

If the lone bird lament or the green leaves
Shiver beneath the summer's soft caresses,
Or rapid streams flash from dark wildernesses
Churning the rock that with my sorrow grieves,
While Love his slow eternal elegy weaves,
Then, then I see her whom this blind earth presses!
Those eyes like wells of stars, those golden tresses,
That voice like tears, that silver breast which heaves:
" Unhappy soul, why weep? Ah why, sad lover,
Thus, thus with anguish and remorse devour

WHEREIN HE CRIES OUT FOR DEATH THAT HIS SOUL MAY JOIN HER AS HAVE HIS THOUGHTS LONG SINCE

Even in the blossom of youth when Love burns high
And bends and binds our hearts with his sweet fire,
Leaving her flesh as a nun leaves earth's attire,
Laura, my life, put me and passion by:
Vital and vivid, the genius of her sky,
She sways the orbit of my soul's desire —
Why was I left to watch from mortal mire
New life's first day unfold, sin's last day die?
My every ardent thought pursues and clings
To her path white with lightning, and my soul

WHEREIN LOVE MUST COUNSEL SOME CHANGE WITHOUT DELAY

Love must advise me newly and that soon
For he has wrought upon my soul a snare,
Such terror and such anguish fasten there
That, though desire increases, hope is strewn.
Baffled and solitary, both by noon
And night the tears of an immense despair
Burn, and my feet go wildly everywhere
Lacking her hand this many a heavy moon.
I dream our hands touch; but alas, she lies
Under much earth, or else through heaven stares
Upon my heart, but not upon mine eyes:

WHEREIN HER DEATH ROBS LIFE OF ITS REASON

Whereas her angel aspect, so serene,
By this brief absence hurls my beggared soul
To dungeon horrors and the darkest hole,
I strive by words to ease a wound too keen.
Certes, true anguish (none hath truer been)
Prompts my wild speech: this she and Love control;
None other balm my sick heart can console
Against the terror of this desolate scene.
Death, thou hast seized her in a savage theft!
And thou, O happy Earth, that perfect face
Now cloakest from me in thy black embrace!

WHEREIN HE SEEKS CONSOLATION IN THE THOUGHT OF HER HEAVENLY HAPPINESS

O eyes, sad eyes, our sun is overshrouded,
Or only veiled to us, and brightly burning
In Heaven's pure blue against our slow returning,
Lamenting the delay that keeps us clouded!
Ah there, mine ears, the air is sweetly crowded
With tones that speak to the heart's high discerning!
My feet, thou canst not pierce the swift white spurning
Of her celestial progress as once thou did!
Why, then, torment and tear me thus, for oh,
You cannot call me guilty that no more