WHEREIN LAURA IS GRAVELY ILL

Love, Nature, and that sweet soul's gentleness
Where every pure and lofty virtue dwells,
Are leagued against my peace. Love strains and swells
His malice to destroy me or distress;
The threads which bind the slender nakedness
Of Nature to the earth are weak. Farewells
To the world move that proud heart which rebels
Humbly against the burdens that oppress.
So falters and so fades her spirit's power
Which should inform the flesh like some white flower,
Or turn the mirror to this graceless age:

WHEREIN HE IS AT THE MERCY OF HER MOODS

If thus the warm look of my Lady wound,
If in her sprightly speech such perils spring,
If, when she parts her lips to smile or sing,
Love can my senses and my soul confound —
Alas! what refuge if those eyes were bound
By fault or fate, locked to all pitying?
Those eyes to which my life, my fortunes cling,
Shut off from mercy and in darkness drowned?
And if my spirit trembles and grows cold
Whenever shadows sweep their moody plumes
Across her forehead, such a fear is old:

WHEREIN HE EXPATIATES UPON LOVE AND JEALOUSY

Capricious Love now locks the heart in frost,
Now fills the marrow of the heart with fire,
Until we cannot say if hope inspire,
Or fear; if flame has won or ice has lost.
In June I quake and chatter, and am tossed
With flame in mid-December, torn entire
With jealousy, or thrilled with sweet desire,
As if she cloaked some rival to my cost.
But my sick heat consumes me day and night
The more as being all my own; nor thought
Nor poet's tongue can grasp the grim delight

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIS PLIGHT TO THAT OF A LIMED BIRD

Love in the grass beneath a laurel bough —
O flower of heaven that feeds my constant flame!
O tree whose shade doth bless and breathe my shame! —
Love spread a net of pearls and gold (O Thou
Most subtle god!) baited, as always, now
With the same seed he sows and reaps, the same
Which I desire, the bittersweet, and blame,
As Adam, its bright burning on my brow;
And the fierce radiance that disputes the sun
Fell flashing round about, and in her hand,

WHEREIN HE ADDRESSES THE PO, ON LEAVING LAURA

Po, on thy powerful impetuous tide
Thou mayst this most corporeal shadow bear
Beyond; but the large spirit lodging there
Neither thy force nor any force may guide:
On generous winds, not pulled to either side,
It yearns against thy current, scorning air
And ocean, oar and sail to seek the lair
Of the proud laurel and the laurel's pride.
O lord of rivers, sultan of the east,
Thou dost confront the horses of the sun,
And, at his setting, leave a ruddier feast!

WHEREIN HE URGES UPON A FRIEND THAT MEEKNESS WHICH IS THE ONLY ARMOUR AGAINST LOVE'S GORGON LOOK

When my sweet foe, so often barricaded
In tall contempt, incites me past controlling,
One solace is vouchsafed, one sure consoling,
One strength alone by which my soul is aided:
Wherever her eyes — which would leave my life shaded
In utter darkness — in red anger rolling,
Meet mine, such true humility, such cajoling
Replies, their wrath to meekness is persuaded.
Ah, were it otherwise, less could I dare
To gaze on her than on Medusa's rings

WHEREIN HE HEARS BUT CANNOT HEED THE VOICE OF REASON

Love in one breath releases me and keeps me,
Encourages, accuses, freezes, burns me,
Now laughs, now leers, now summons, now he spurns me,
Now strides the stars, now in hell's horror steeps me;
Now up, now down, despoiled and spent he sweeps me,
Till from the path of true desire he turns me:
But this false joy only revulsion earns me,
Such tortured fruit my tortured spirit reaps me.
A gentle thought then indicates the course,
Not of such grief as drowns the desperate eye,

WHEREIN HER NEARNESS IS WELL WORTH THE VARIOUS PERILS OF THE JOURNEY

Love, who puts wings on heart and feet that so
To the third heaven his servant lightly soar,
In one brief day has many a stream and shore
In proud Ardennes permitted me to know.
How sweet alone and weaponless to go
Through danger swift to strike; how sweet — and more —
To plow the storm without a sail, an oar;
To overcome some vague but constant foe!
But, once arrived my desperate journey's end,
Recalling whence I came and by whose pinion,

ARMED IN HIS CONSTANCY, HE PASSES WITHOUT FEAR, WITHOUT AFFRONT THROUGH THE PERILS OF THE FOREST OF ARDENNES

Through forests harsh, inhospitable, I
Securely penetrate where travelers
Quake in their armour: for my fear defers
Only to that sun which darts dangerously
A soul-consuming flame. I lift love's cry
To her whom time and space hide not: all hers,
Her shape — even here! nor hers alone — in firs
And beeches see! — and in girls dryad-shy!
Meseems her voice is audible when the bird
Flutters the fugitive leaf, or through the glade

WHEREIN LOVE'S SLAVE REMEMBERS

That time and place loom like a promontory
Which marked me manacled and branded so,
Love's hand upon my wrists and the bright blow
Of branding irons that made my pain a glory.
My heart, packed with his flame, like the soft fury
Of those dull moans my ears, my heart well know,
Is so ablaze, its very torments glow:
On these I live, my bitter golden story.
That single sun which burst upon my sight,
Burns with his blinding shafts my soul still taken