TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE VERSES

If the proud branch, whose honoured leaf defies
The fury of Heaven when Jove thunders loud,
Had not prevented me from being proud
By keeping me uncrowned, my ardent eyes
Should bend with you in your idolatries,
To which our craven age has never bowed;
Alas, that laurelled injury has cowed
My spirit and forced me from the olive trees!
For Ethiopian earth beneath its sun
Never with such heat hissed, as burns my drouth
At loss of what I set my soul upon.

TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE VERSES

If the proud branch, whose honoured leaf defies
The fury of Heaven when Jove thunders loud,
Had not prevented me from being proud
By keeping me uncrowned, my ardent eyes
Should bend with you in your idolatries,
To which our craven age has never bowed;
Alas, that laurelled injury has cowed
My spirit and forced me from the olive trees!
For Ethiopian earth beneath its sun
Never with such heat hissed, as burns my drouth
At loss of what I set my soul upon.

WHEREIN HIS HEART, BY LAURA REJECTED, MUST OF A CERTAINTY PERISH UNLESS SHE RELENT

A thousand times, O my sweet warrior,
Burning to purchase peace of those proud eyes,
Have I held forth the heart your heart denies,
Which your nobility will not bend for.
And if some other lady love it more,
Vain is her hope and false: what you despise
I must disdain, since what you do not prize
I spurn, and what you hate cannot adore.
Exiled by me, what then if it shall find
With you no word of mercy now or later,
And so, when others call it, stay behind,

WHEREIN THE PRAISES OF HIS LADY TRANSCEND HIS SKILL

Shamed often by the thought that still unsung
Dear Lady, is your beauty in my rhyme,
I go back to the unforgettable time
When first I saw you (moment that has clung
Supremely to my heart). But I have wrung
No rapture worthy of you from the chime
Of my poor syllables; nor can ever climb
The mountain where the difficult harp is hung.
Again and again on point to speak your name
I opened my lips, only to feel again
My voice locked in my breast. O what pure flame

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIMSELF TO A MOTH

Creatures there are of such a glittering sight
It is its own defence against the sun;
Others that hide until the day is done,
Lest they be blinded with excess of light;
And others still whom brightness will excite
To madness, and inflame them till they run
Headlong into the heat! And such an one
Alas! am I, consumed in fiery flight.
For I have not the strength that can withstand
The dazzling light of Laura, nor discern
In darkness and descending hours a hand

HE TURNS TO FLIGHT, BUT PASSION PURSUES

When my whole soul is turned toward that part
Where sheds Madonna's face a shadow of light,
Light for a shadow, and in my thought that light,
Which burns me and consumes in every part,
I, sore adread lest from my heart it part
Seeing at hand the end of this my light,
Go as a blind man goes, deprived of light,
Ignorant where to go, whence to depart.
So from before the strokes of striding Death
I run, I run, but not so swift Desire
Ceases to follow, as is his wont, alone.

WHEREIN HE RECOUNTS HIS STATE WHEN LAURA IS
PRESENT AND WHEN SHE LEAVES HIM

Tears, bitter tears fall in a bitter rain,
And my heart trembles with a storm of sighs
When on your beauty bend my burning eyes,
For whose sole sake the world seems flat and vain.
But ah, when I can see that smile again,
That chaste, sweet, delicate smile, then passion dies
Withered in its own flaming agonies:
Gazing upon you, passion is lost and pain.
But all too soon my very soul is rocked
When you depart and with your passing dear

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIMSELF TO A PILGRIM

The pilgrim, pallid and with hair grown gray,
Takes leave of the sweet spot where life was dear,
And of his little family whose great fear
Paints the loved parent fainting on the way;
Then trembling in his body's broken clay,
Upon the verge of his last vigil here,
Sustained by his soul's purpose burning clear,
He steps, though years and leagues by night and day
Oppress him. But his pious love finds Rome
Somehow at length; he seeks the Face Divine
Which soon he hopes to see in Kingdom Come:

ON LEAVING LAURA

I look behind me, every step retrace,
And scarce the burden of my body bear,
And then take comfort from your local air
Which gives me breath to move and moan " Alas! "
Then thinking on the loss of my heart's grace,
The long, long journey, life a shortening stair,
I fix my feet in fear and white despair
And to the earth my streaming eyes abase.
And through my tears a doubt stirs, questioning:
" How ever can these limbs, consumed by grief,
Survive their absence from their spirit's spring? "

WHEREIN HE IS BROUGHT BY LAURA'S LOVELINESS TO THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE HIGHEST EXCELLENCE

When Love his flaming image on her brow
Enthrones in perfect beauty like a star,
As far as she outshines the rest, so far
I feel the blaze of passion surge and grow.
Yet still I bless the place, the hour when so
Supremely high, at light so singular
I dared to look: " O heart, you blessed are
To gaze upon that pure, that golden glow, "
I murmur. " She inspired the splendid thought
Which points to heaven and teaches honest eyes