IN REPLY TO A SONNET OF JACOPO DA LENIINO

I would sing Love in music apt and new,
And bruise her hard heart into sigh on sigh,
And set her frozen mind to flaming high
With ardour; as each time she heard me sue,
Over her face would pass in swift review
Many a change; and tears in each proud eye,
Like one who grieves too late for memory
Of his own error and another's rue;
I would remark fresh roses in that snow
Rise with her breath — that ivory barrier
Which turns to marble whoso looks on her;

WHEREIN SELF-BANISHMENT AFFORDS NO RETREAT FROM ENVY

Since pity is a barred and bolted door,
And paths as pitiless our lives divide,
Obscuring her from me, the unsatisfied
And all but unrewarded servitor,
My heart on sighs I nourish and restore,
With the black bread of anguish well supplied;
Yet those that see me spent and hollow-eyed
Guess not the sweetness at the sorrow's core.
Your portrait, where mine eyes obtain sole peace,
No Zeuxis pencilled nor Praxiteles,
But a hand bolder, with more skill contrived.

WHEREIN HE RECOUNTS THE CAUSES OF HIS WOE

Love, Fortune, and my melancholy state,
Despising what is present by what's past,
So plague my soul that on the dead I cast
Thoughts envious of the peace they contemplate.
Love tears my heart; Fortune, more obstinate,
Afflicts me without pause, until at last,
Worn out by ills as vigilant as vast,
To constant warfare I submit my fate.
Nor do I hope for happier days again,
But tinge the future a more turbulent tint;
Spring is no more — summer is on the wane:

UPON HIS LEAVE-TAKING

That touching pallor which, like a soft cloud
Veiled her sweet smile, so delicate, so dear,
So shook my heart that from its stricken sphere
It sought to rise and meet that lovely shroud.
Then felt I how the blessed lovers crowd
About each other with eyes fixed and near:
For never was a mortal's gaze so clear,
So perfect and so tenderly endowed.
The gentlest glance ever a woman threw
Upon her love were cold and lustreless
Against this look that like celestial dew

THE SEVENTEENTH SUMMER

Alas! the seventeenth summer comes and goes,
And still with undiminished heat I burn;
Yet of this heart my anxious eyes discern
How winter rimes it, though the red flame glows.
They tell the truth: " Till Habit change her hose
Years bleach the hair." The veins feel summer turn
To snow, though not less hard the passions churn
Against the flesh, no less flames winter's rose.
Ah, speed the sparkling day when, no more flayed
With the fierce dooms and furious ecstasies,

TO ANTONIO OF FERRARA WHO, IN AN ELEGY, HAD PREMATURELY MOURNED PETRARCH'S DEATH

Those pious verses, which revealed so well
Thy genius and thy generous spirit, so
Inflamed my mind to a responsive glow
That instantly I set about to tell
How, though Death has not struck as yet — that knell
None shall escape, that final definite blow —
Nevertheless I too, and with no woe,
Had almost found the gateway to his hell:
But back I came once more because I read
Writ large across the lintel that the last
Of my appointed life was not all past,

WHEREIN, DESPITE HIS WRETCHEDNESS, HE PROTESTS HIS PASSION REMAINS UNALTERED

My sixteenth year of sighs its round has run:
Alone I stand, poised on the treacherous brink
Where Age swoops down; and yet, or so I think,
My testing time is only just begun.
Ah, sweet it is to live, to be undone;
Hard though life be, more suns in Heaven may sink
To vanquish misery: else Death may drink
Those eyes I praise, those lips that praises shun.
Here am I now who would be found elsewhere;
More would I wish, and yet no more I would;

IF BUT HE MIGHT CATCH SIGHT OF LAURA'S DWELLING, HIS SIGHS WOULD THE MORE RAPIDLY REACH HER

If this wide valley-guarded wall of stone,
From which its present name we closely trace,
Had been by nature levelled, overthrown,
Its back to Babel and to Rome its face,
Then had my sighs an easier passage known
To where their hope abides in shining grace:
Now they move singly, though one grief they moan;
Each struggles through the stone to the same place.
Once there, I must observe, such welcome greets
Each separate sigh, that none comes back again,

LAURA'S IMAGE CONFRONTS HIM EVERYWHITHER

With inexpressible sweetness overflowing,
Which from that lovely face mine eyes drew streaming,
And sealed as fast, for very rapture gleaming,
Never to dwell on lesser beauty's glowing,
Then, Love at Love's beloved perfection knowing,
I left it: now my mind devotes its dreaming
To her alone; what is not to her seeming,
It shuts away from any sight or showing.
Deep in a dell secluded from all peering,
Sole consolation of my sad heart's sighing,
Pensive and slow, I walk with Love communing:

WHEREIN LAURA, TURNING TO SALUTE HIM, THE SUN IN A JEALOUS FIT RETREATS BEHIND A CLOUD

Between two lovers I espied a lady,
Proud, though of virtue: one of those with her
Was he to whom the heavens and earth defer;
The sun on his side stood, I on the shady.
Jealous he grew, then scarce an instant stayed he,
But fled — and all my heart was set astir
To feel her eyes on me: hope knew the spur
Of joy. Now will she prove less cold ... Already
The envious fear which sprang up in my heart
At the first glimpse of my gold rival felt