WHEREIN LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE ARE HEAVENLY DERIVATIVES

The stars, the heavens, the very elements
Have joined their utmost, all their skill and care
To make a thing unutterably fair,
A harmony to which the sun consents,
To which all Nature lends her influence,
Noble, unique — death to the mortal stare —
Love pours such flame of sweetness on the air
And from her eyes such dazzling opulence.
The very atmosphere, thus purified
By their dear flame, with candour kindles so,
Thought cannot reach it, speech crawls far below.

WHEREIN HIS ANGUISH BESEECHES PITY OR DEATH

Go, burning sighs, go to that frosty breast,
Split the dense ice which laughs at charity;
And if to mortal prayer high Heaven agree,
Let death or mercy put my grief at rest!
Go, tenderest thoughts! Reveal your tenderest
To her, Our Lady who disdains to see:
If still her pride, if still my destiny
Offend, we shall our mischief know at least.
Go in some perfect interval and tell
How dark, how desperate has been our woe,
While she remains unmoved and equable.

WHEREIN HE PROTESTS HE CANNOT MUCH LONGER ENDURE HER EXTREME WHIMS

Than breast of bear, or tiger's heart more fierce
Looms that angelic shape in human guise,
Who, between dread and hope, from songs to sighs
So shakes me, torturing doubt to savage tears.
It cannot be but soon, if thus she veers
Between the two extremes contrariwise,
By the sweet poison that her whims devise,
My life, O Love, will be in sad arrears.
No longer can my virtue, ravaged thin
'Twixt such contending, hot and cold at once,

WHEREIN LOVE GUIDES HIM TO REASON

Never fled shaken mariner to port
From the black welter, from the hurricane,
As from the mutinous tumult of the brain
I tear away — from thoughts of dark resort;
Nor ever blazed a bolt from heaven's fort
Blasting the mortal sight, as with rich pain
And pride and passion burned that matchless twain
Wherein Love tips the gold barbs of his sport.
Throned in his own light there he lords it, there —
Not blind, but quivered, naked — or almost:
A boy alive, not mythical, no dear ghost;

WHEREIN THE POET ARGUES WITH HIS HEART P .

What act, what dream possesses thee, my Soul?
Speak, is it parley, peace, or endless war? H .
Our fate is dark, but this is still in store:
We are in danger when her bright orbs roll. P .
What profit when those eyes at will control
Our spirits, till suns freeze and frosts burn sore? H .
Hers not the fault, since her love burns the more. P .
No good to me, when she withholds her dole. H .
How often, when the tongue is mute, the heart
Groans grievously! How often the calm look

WHEREIN HE APOSTROPHIZES THE LAUREL AND ITS ATTENDANT WATER

Not Tesin, Po, the Arno, Tiber, nor
Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Ganges, Nile,
Nor Rhone, Garonne, nor streams of any style,
Nor all the trees of all earth's fertile store —
Not one cool drop, not one dram can these pour
To check the flame which eats my heart the while —
Nay, but one brook weeps balm of camomile,
And one dear poet's branch heals me far more.
This single succour do I find, this one:
Wherefore meseems I should so live my life
In arms, which else sweeps to oblivion.

WHEREIN HER GLANCES SOOTHE AND CHECK HIM

When passion, that with double ardent spurs
And stubborn bit leads and constrains my paces,
Transgresses now and then the common graces
To suit the sighs of Love's idolaters,
Her it discovers, since the sign is hers
Who reads the deep heart's dread in ravaged traces
Upon my patent forehead, while Love faces
A light more piercing than the glance it stirs.
So that, like one who fears the falling blow
Of furious Jupiter, the will retires,
For great fears always conquer great desires;

WHEREIN HE SINGS LAURA TO ITALY

O warmed with ardent virtue and adorned,
Gentlest of souls, for whom my pen has power;
House of unique integrity, white tower
Unshakable, against assault forewarned;
O flame, O roses where Narcissus scorned
His own sweet image for a sweeter flower!
O bliss through which the soul can stretch an hour
Of light! O lovely face that soul has mourned
As inaccessible! If your name's praise
Could reach, I should fill Bactra and bless Thule,
Nile, Tanais, Calpe and Olympus duly;

WHEREIN HE AFFIRMS HIS INVINCIBLE DEVOTION

Place me where the sun shrivels grass and flower,
Or where the ice and snow are marble kings,
Or where his golden chariot glides on wings,
Where he refrains, where lingers a long hour;
Place me where fortunes laugh, where fortunes glower,
In the soft air, or in the air that stings;
Place me in night, in day that darts or clings,
In the ripe summer or the season sour.
Place me in heaven, on earth, in the abyss,
On a high hill or in a dungeon valley,
A liberal spirit or a flesh-bound flame;

WHEREIN HE RECALLS THE FIRST SIGHT OF LAURA AND LOVE

Never so splendidly did the sun arise
When the sky stood most purged of taint and mist,
Nor, after rain, has the rainbow's amethyst
In the washed air displayed so many dyes
As are the colours that against my eyes
Dazzled that day I strapped upon my wrist
Love's load, that face (the florid I resist
In speech) beyond all mortal rivalries.
I saw Love turning, saw his eyes at turning
Look with such light upon me, such sweet burning
That all things else went dark that day and since.