CONCERNING THE LAMENTABLE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA

Weep, women, and with you weep Love as well!
Weep, lovers everywhere, a various throng!
Since he is dead, who while he lived had sung
So valiantly of Love! O ring his knell!
For me, my dear entreaties must compel
This cruel dolour not to check my tongue
Of its melodious tears nor make less long
The heart's moan that shall lighten the heart's hell.
Rhymes, weep, and verses, do you also weep!
Since Messer Cino, of love's fragrant line
The lord, is even now fast locked in sleep!

WHEREIN HE CONDOLES WITH HIS BROTHER GHERARDO ON THE UNTIMELY DEATH OF A LADY HE LOVED

The lovely lady thou didst love so greatly
Hath from our midst too soon, too soon departed
To take her place among the splendid-hearted
Whose virtue shed such light upon us lately.
No human bliss or bane her station stately
Can touch or taint: come, stand again, new-started,
New-consecrated in God's path, new-charted
In the bright flight that speeds to Heaven so straightly!
Thus, from the heavier burden liberated,

WHEREIN HE EXALTS HER BEAUTY AND AVERS THE PERMANENCE OF HIS PASSION

Golden upon the wind her loose hair streaming,
Twisted into a thousand curls was shaken;
And from her eyes, which seldom now awaken
To answer mine, a fiery light was gleaming;
Ah! — was it fancy? — but with wistful seeming,
Her lovely face by pity's tint was taken:
What marvel that my heart, so long Love's beacon,
Should flame out, fueled so by Love's fierce dreaming?
She was no mortal in her stately moving,
But stepped an angel; and her accents glowing

WHEREIN HE INFORMS CERTAIN LADIES OF THE ADVANTAGES OF LOVE'S DURESS

Fleeing the prison where these many years
Love held me in a sort of heavenly hell, —
Ladies, the story were too long to tell,
How my new freedom crushed me with new fears:
My heart felt anguish fiercer than Love's tears;
Loveless, it could not live a day: then fell
Again on me that Traitor, masked so well
He had deceived a wiser than his peers.
Wherefore, with frequent sighs turning my soul
Back, I have cried, " Ah, Christ! the yoke and chains

WHEREIN HE EXHORTS LOVERS TO FLY FROM LOVE BETIMES

Since my hope takes too long upon the way
And life has all too short a time to stay,
I wish with all my heart I had perceived
Sooner, and fled as soon and swift away —
And fly I do, though I feel sore aggrieved
In my left side where Love his worst achieved;
But safe at last, though on my face his sway
Is plainly written — not to be retrieved.
Wherefore I warn you that yet walk his road,
Turn your blind steps aside; and ye inflamed
With Love, do not await his extreme goad:

WHEREIN THE ACCUSES LAURA'S EYES OF KEEPING HIM ALIVE ONLY TO TORTURE HIM

As soon as the good bowman slacks his bow,
From far off he discerns which arrow flies
Wide of the mark — a shot he must despise —
And which to its intended point will go:
Even so, my Lady, your eyes struck, even so
You felt, surely you felt your piercing eyes
Plunge deep into my life: from which must rise
In tears the heart's eternal overflow.
And sure am I that even then you said:
" Unhappy lover, to what shall passion lead?

WHEREIN HE WRITES A RECANTATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY SONNET

Always I hold that window in my hate
Whence Love discharged a thousand shafts at will,
Because not one of them sufficed to kill:
For death is good when life is rich and great
But this existence in a prison state
Feeds me the bitter bread of endless ill!
And more's the grief that stays immortal still,
Since soul from heart can never separate.
O miserable, who should be most aware
By long experience now that from his track
Time cannot be restrained or flattered back!

ON AN ANNIVERSARY, SEEING LAURA AT THE HOUR AND PLACE OF THEIR FIRST MEETING

Ever I loved, and love as much as ever,
And day by day shall only love the more
That lovely place where often I implore
Peace from Love's fierce and unremitting fever;
My mind is set to love the swords that sever
Vile passions from it, and the hour it tore
Away, and her whose face makes the heart soar,
Whose pure example points to high endeavour.
Who ever thought to see them all combine,
Now on this side, now that, my heart to storm —

DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE POET AND HIS EYES P.

Weep, eyes, accompany the fiery heart
That suffers death, yet knows the fault is yours. E.
Weep? Yea, and saltier is the flood that pours
For others' pain than for the bitter smart
We feel! P. Through you Love first applied his art
And still through you his tyrannous sway endures. E.
True, yet the heart's own hope made overtures
That left him bare to Death's consuming dart. P.
The guilt does not, as you think, equal fall
On heart and eyes, for you, at first sight, were

WHEREIN, THOUGH NOT INVULNERABLE, HE REFUSES TO FEEL FURTHER TORMENT OF LOVE

Till winter's silver frost my temples harrow,
Where shade by shade Time mixes gray with grayer,
Danger will dog me still, ah grim gainsayer,
So long as Love keeps finger upon arrow.
Let Love his tortures practice on a sparrow!
I do not dread that treacherous trick-player:
My heart will not fly open for the slayer
To plant his blood-red barbs deep in its marrow!
Mine eyes are stones through which tears cannot blunder,
Though well they know the way in, ah so well,