WHEREIN IN HER PRESENCE HE CAN NEITHER SPEAK, WEEP NOR SIGH

Although from falsehood I with all my will
Restrained you, and bestowed each honour due,
Ungrateful tongue, no honour came from you
To solace me, but only shame and ill:
When most I need your help, you are most chill,
Winning for me no mercy while I sue;
And those your words are most imperfect too,
You speak as speaks a dreamer strange and still.
And you as well, sad tears, each lonely night
Attend me when I most would be alone;
But, wanted for my peace, you take to flight:

WHEREIN HER PRESENCE INFLAMES HIS HEART BUT FREEZES HIS TONGUE

If never fire by fire was yet subdued,
If never flood by dint of rain grew less,
But, like to like, if each of each increase,
And opposites are often mutual food;
Love, that canst sway the music of each mood,
Through whom two bodies keep their singleness
Of soul, how, why in her with such distress,
Between the flesh and spirit prolong the feud?
Perchance, as the vast downward Nile will run
Deafening all the valleys with his tide,

HE MUST SEE THOSE EYES AGAIN OR DIE

Already had I felt within me fail
Those spirits which from you their life derive;
And since by nature, everything alive
Must against death aspire to prevail,
I gave Desire the bit, let the reins trail,
In his almost forgotten path to thrive,
Though night and day against his call I strive,
Though day and night his wiser choice assail.
And so it led me back, ashamed and slow,
Again to see those eyes illustrious
With love, which I must never dim by woe:

WHEREIN HE RAILS AGAINST THE MIRROR THAT ABSORBS HER TO HIS NEGLECT

The gold and pearls, vermilion flowers and pale,
Her various charms that should in winter pass
Withered with frost, more permanent than brass
Endure, more sharp than arrows pour a hail
Of poison on my heart: so my days fail
And fade, for grief puts flesh beneath the grass;
But most I blame that sweet tyrannical glass,
Thy mirror of delight, thy holy grail!
This on my lord imposed the silent seal,
Lord Love that trembled, since to thy desire,

WHEREIN HE DEPLORES LAURA'S INFATUATION WITH HER MIRROR

That glass, my rival, where you dote upon
Those eyes which Love and Heaven do both adore,
With beauties, not its own, enamours more
Your gaze than mortal sweetness ever won.
And me, by that antagonist goaded on,
From your breast, like a beggar from your door,
You have to wretched exile sent as poor,
Too poor to share what is for you alone.
But were I fixed thereto with nails of steel,
A mirror should not make you, to my spite,
Cruel and proud your sole self to delight.

WHEREIN HE ACCUSES LAURA OF HARDNESS

He, that in Thessaly for empire threw,
Soaking with civic blood Pharsalia's field,
As Pompey's body, stretched upon his shield,
Passed by, with tears beheld the face he knew;
David, who split the Philistine in two,
Lamented his rebellious sons, and kneeled
In generous grief when Saul, by brave death healed
Of shame, Gilboa's tribute also drew.
But you, whom never pity blanched or paled,
Who always keep your bucklers at your hand
Against Love's bow which might as well be sand,

WHEREIN HE DEPICTS THE MISERY OF PHoeBUS AT THE LOSS OF HIS LOVE

Nine times already had Latona's son
Gazed from the topmost balcony of heaven
For her who shook his breast with sighs; so even
This instant others are with sighs undone;
Then searching wearily, his great eyes run
Hither and thither for some sign or haven;
Ignorant where she lives, like a wild raven
He glared, grief-crazed, for his beloved one;
And so, the clouds of anguish intervening,
Saw not the sweet face turn, which, if I live,

WHEREIN HER RETURN REJOICES THE EARTH AND SOOTHES THE HEAVENS — THOUGH NOT HIS ANGUISH

But when her smile so sweetly flashing leaps
From ambush where it lay like light forsaken,
Stout Vulcan strives in vain to reawaken
That anvil where Sicilian lightning sleeps:
For from the grasp of Jove down to the deeps
Of boiling Etna are his thunders taken;
His sister's icy fortresses are shaken,
And in Apollo's warmth she melts, she weeps.
The red rose of the west breathes a bright wind
Which blows the ship at sea to silver beaches,

AT LAURA'S DEPARTURE THE ELEMENTS ARE VEXED WITH STORMS

When from her proper seat that tree we move,
Cherished by Phaebus once in human guise,
Black Vulcan at his labour sweats and sighs,
Renewing the grim arsenal of Jove
Who thunders now; in snows or rains that rove
Now speaks; nor Janus more than Julius plies:
Earth groans, the sun in sorrow veils his eyes
Viewing no more the Lady of his love.
Then Mars and Saturn, cruel stars, resume
Their rancour; and Orion, armed with clouds,
Shatters the helms and splits the spars and shrouds

WHEREIN HE BEGS A FRIEND IN ROME TO LEND HIM THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTINE

If Love or Death prove no impediment
To the new web which herewith I prepare,
And if I can escape the golden snare,
While natural truth with truth revealed are blent
Into one truth, I may a work present
So double, modern style with language rare
And ancient mixed, that (timidly, I dare
Proclaim it) Rome herself should hail the event.
But since, to finish what is thus begun,
I lack some of the sacred threads which flew
So freely when our cherished father spun,