WHEREIN, LURED BY LAUREL, HE FALLS INTO A GRASSY RIVULET

Upon the left bank of the Tyrrhene sea,
Where, broken by the wind, the waves complain,
I suddenly saw that haughty leaf again,
For which so many a poem pours from me:
Love, that within the heart boils fearfully,
Remembering her bright hair with golden pain,
Pressed me, till in a rivulet dark with stain
Of grasses, wandering in soft secrecy,
I fell like a dead thing... With hill and grove
About me, I felt shamed: the gentle heart
Blushes, nor needs it other spurs to love.

WHEREIN HE ENTREATS LOVE TO KINDLE IN LAURA'S BOSOM THE FIRE WHICH CEASELESSLY CONSUMES HIM

Alas! how little, in those first fierce days
When Love probed deep, was my heart known to me,
Where by degrees he gained the mastery
Of my whole life in many subtle ways:
I never thought that, with his yeas and nays,
This heart, hammered by time so terribly,
Could show such faintness, such infirmity,
And to its folly its poor pride abase.
From now on, all defence will come too late
Save this, such as it is, to prove my fate,

WHEREIN HE ENTREATS LAURA NOT TO HATE THE
HEART WHERE SHE MUST PERFORCE ABIDE

If, by the troubled and disdainful sign,
The head averted and the lowered eyes,
The readiness for flight (none other flies
So fast), the deafness to all prayers of mine:
If thou, by these or other arts of thine,
Canst quit the laurelled breast where multiplies
Love's branch from the first graft, for such emprise,
Such scorn I might a worthy cause divine:
For a sweet plant of light in arid earth
Seems out of place, and thence with no regret

TO GOD ON HOLY FRIDAY, THE ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS FOLLY

Father of heaven! after the days all lost,
After the nights on foolish fancies spent
In that fierce passion's proud imprisonment,
Seeing her beauty to my bitter cost;
Please Thee, with Thine illuminating ghost
Of grace, to new light, worthier intent
Return me, so that Love's snares may be rent
Asunder and my cruel foe be crossed.
Already now, O Lord, the eleventh year
Waxes and wanes, since first his pitiless yoke
Fell on me, that most furious charioteer;

HAVING RECEIVED SOME FAVOUR, A GLANCE OR SALUTATION, HE TURNS HIS CURSES INTO BLESSINGS

Blest be the day, and blest the month and year,
Season and hour and very moment blest,
The lovely land and place where first possessed
By two pure eyes I found me prisoner;
And blest the first sweet pain, the first most dear,
Which burned my heart when Love came in as guest;
And blest the bow, the shafts which shook my breast,
And even the wounds which Love delivered there.
Blest be the words and voices which filled grove

WHEREIN HE LASHES OUT AGAINST THE LAUREL

The perfect tree I loved so many years,
Before her golden boughs disdained my suit,
Encouraged my meek blossom into fruit
Beneath her shade, disturbed by anxious tears.
But now, my soul secure from all such fears,
She turns to cruel wood in branch and root:
And all my thoughts to one sad purpose put,
Must still address their grief to heedless ears.
What can he say, the windy fool of love,
Infatuated by new rhymes with hope,
Who for that laurel has lost all — but this?

TO HIS FRIEND, THE CARDINAL COLONNA, WITH GIFTS OF CUSHIONS, BOOKS, A GOBLET

Thy cheek, once worn with weeping, rest upon
The first, my cherished lord; and do thou be
Of thy dear self somewhat more niggardly
With Love that gloats and turns men white as stone;
And with the second shut that path, O shun
That left-hand path where Love is far too free;
In August as in January see
Time fail thee not ere the long way be done.
And with the third, drink that rare medicine,
Sweet at the last, though sour at the start,

CONCERNING THE SAME OCCASION

My fortunes come upon me late and slow —
Hope is uncertain, passions mount and swell;
Suspense and expectation both rebel —
But swifter to depart than tigers go.
Tepid and black, alas, shall turn the snow,
Waveless the sea, the fish on mountains dwell,
The sun sink in the East, by that same well
Whence both the Tigris and Euphrates flow,
Ere I in this find peace or any truce,
Ere Love or Laura other habits use
Than these conspiracies and cruel snares:

WHEREIN THE POET AWAITS LAURA AT A PROMISED TRYST — IN VAIN

Either that blind flame which destroys the heart,
Numbering the hours, cheats my misery,
Or the time pledged to mercy and me,
Even as I speak, speeds like a plunging dart.
Alas! what cruel shadow blights the chart
Of the seed so near its hoped maturity?
What beast within my fold roars balefully?
What wall keeps hand and ear of corn apart?
Alas! I know not, but in truth I guess
Love to such joyful hope has merely led
To sink my life more deeply in distress;

LAURA TURNS HIM TO STONE, WHEREFORE HE ENVIES INSENSATE THINGS

Had that same light which dazzles from afar
Moved but a little nearer to my eyes,
Like Phaebus in Thessalian disguise,
I should have changed my form in amorous war;
But if I cannot lose myself in her
More than I have — though it scarce win her sighs —
I should today a stonier enterprise
Present in aspect than a knife or bar
Or hammer ever hewed from adamant
Or frozen marble, out of fear, or proud
Jasper coveted by the greedy crowd.