WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIMSELF UNTO A CITY BE-LEAGUERED AND CRIES HIS HEART TRAITOR

Peace! Give me peace! O iron-eyed despairs!
Is it not quite enough that Love, Death, Fate
Roar the red battle to my very gate,
But my soul must resound to tread of theirs?
And thou, O heart, at me alone that bares
Unfaithful fangs, what treasons congregate
Under thine auspices, unholy mate
Of my most fickle foes, my deadliest snares?
Love his most furtive missions hides in thee,
In thee her blind disasters Fate approves,

WHEREIN HE EXHORTS HIS SOUL TO LEAVE THE HOLLOW CLAIMS OF EARTH FOR THE CERTAIN REWARDS OF HEAVEN

What can you do? What think? Ah, why bend back
Upon the time that passes and is past?
The flame you fed once, the old holocaust,
Why feed again with agonies as black?
Those tones that shook the stars in sweet attack,
Those heaven-searching glances which outlast
All similes are fled; and how aghast
Must grow the late and lonely bivouac!
Cancel the resurrection of a ghost!
Forswear pursuit of dreams with desperate eyes!

WHEREIN HE FINDS NO RESPITE

Life rushes by on proud impatient feet,
And Death pursues her with a massive stride;
Ills past and present tear the soul aside,
With pain the future threatens to repeat:
I look before and after — pain I meet;
A thousand menaces my peace deride;
Ah, were not pity so involved with pride,
Long, long ago I should have found death sweet!
If ever any joy this heart has known,
Memory on it broods while, tempest-battered,
The winds still howl, the sinister heavens frown;

WHEREIN HIS LIBERTY IS SAVED TO HIM BY THE DEATH OF ANOTHER LADY

That fiery snare in which I used to flame,
While for two decades and a year I bore it,
Death has unfastened: never pain before it
Of such intensity touched me, never the same.
But Love, still bent my tortured soul to tame,
So spread his net my heart could scarce ignore it,
So fed the fire, so trapped my heart and tore it,
That no escape could save me from the shame.
Had I not learned from my first agonies,
I should long since have nourished his fierce hunger —

WHEREIN HE LAMENTS HIS TWOFOLD LOSS IN LAURA AND COLONNA

The lofty Column and the Laurel fall
That gave pavilion to my heart's despair;
I shall not find their equal anywhere,
Though every sea I search and wind and wall.
My double wealth — lost, lost beyond recall
Life's pride and pleasure mated for me there:
Lands cannot buy them back nor kings unsnare,
Nor gold nor gems deliver them at all.
Against this doom what strength to consecrate
Save that of tears that blind these futile eyes,
Save the bowed head, the clenched fists at the Gate!

WHEREIN HE RECEIVES TIDINGS OF LAURA'S DEATH

Alas! that liquid look, that lovely face!
Alas! the poised grace of that golden head!
Alas! the sweetness of the words she said
That soothed the savage breast, raised up the base!
Alas! the smile — that dart which I embrace,
Whose hope is death now that all hope is dead;
O hadst thou not so late inhabited
This earth, how queenly would have been thy place!
In thee I burn, in thee still draw my breath,
Being all thine. Death now has disciplined
All lesser pain to nothing; no sharp teeth

WHEREIN HE LAMENTS HIS SEPARATION FROM HIS TWIN LIGHTS, LAURA AND COLONNA

O good milord, thoughts, wishes all inclined
My constant heart to visit one so dear;
But Fortune (that erratic Charioteer!)
Kept me in leash, misled, pulled up behind.
Since when the sweet desire Love breathed in mind
Leads to a death I do not see, but fear;
And while my two lights are denied me here,
Wherever I am, there is my soul confined.
Affection for milord, love of my Laura —
By these bonds and in torments bitter long

WHEREIN PERSISTENT HOPE MAY WEAR HER STONINESS DOWN

Heart cold and hard, with will as hard and cold
In angel form of sweet humility
If thus too long her rigour punish me,
Time will her triumph all too soon unfold;
When flower and leaf are born, or turn to mold,
When day is clearest, in night's mystery
Alike I weep: Love, Laura, Destiny
Give me good cause for sorrow, new and old.
I live on hope alone, remembering
How by continued dint of tiny drops
I have seen solid stone and marble groove:
No heart however hard, no will's cold ring

LAURA'S GARLAND OF VIRTUES

Laurel, O tree of triumph, proudest crown
Of emperors and poets with thy leaf
Victorious, how much of joy and grief
Have I by dint of thee in one breath known!
Lady, indifferent to the world's renown,
Sweet sovereign of the will, the virtuous sheaf
Thou gatherest, fearing not that subtile thief,
Love and his snares: thy wisdom is thine own.
The pride of blood and worldly treasure-gems,
Of pearl and gold and rubies — these are less
Than dust in thy regard; even the blaze

WHEREIN LIFE WITHOUT HONOUR IS UNTHINKABLE

In lovely woman life should claim the first
Concern, and honour should the next claim press;
Nay, lacking honour, what an emptiness!
What good corrupted and what bliss accurst!
She that hath honour's fragile rampart burst,
Sexless and lifeless, though still beauty's dress
She wear, a death in life she must confess,
A hell of shame and flame and feverish thirst!
Lucretia's end no marvel is to me,
Save that, when in the last extremity
Disgrace alone was death, she seized the sword.