Who will in fairest book of nature know
How virtue may best lodg'd in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And, not content to be perfection's heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.
So while thy beauty draws thy heart to love,

My Fair, if thou wilt register my love,
A world of volumes shall thereof arise;
Preserve my tears, and thou thyself shalt prove
A second flood, down-raining from mine eyes.
Note by my sighs, and thine eyes shall behold
The sunbeams smother'd with immortal smoke;
And if by thee my prayers may be enroll'd,
They Heav'n and Earth to pity shall provoke.
Look thou into my breast, and thou shalt see
Chaste holy vows for my soul's sacrifice,
That soul, sweet Maid, which so hath honor'd thee,
Erecting trophies to thy sacred eyes,

As Love and I, late harbor'd in one inn,
With proverbs thus each other entertain:
"In Love there is no lack," thus I begin;
"Fair words make fools," replieth he again;
"Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I;
"As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow";
"Fortune assists the boldest," I reply;
"A hasty man," quoth he, "ne'er wanted woe";
"Labor is light where Love," quoth I, "doth pay";
Saith he, "Light burden's heavy, if far borne";
Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the bye away";

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my cares' return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwrack of my ill-adventur'd youth;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease Dreams, th'imagery of our day desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let the rising Sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Amid the florid multitude her face
Was like the full moon seen behind the lace
Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part
When Spring shines in the world and in the heart.
As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor
Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour,
So to my being's innermost recess
Flooded the light of so much loveliness;
She held as in a vase of priceless ware
The wine that over arid ways and bare
My youth was the pathetic thirsting for,
And where she moved the veil of Nature grew

Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,

Up at his attic sill the South wind came
And days of sun and storm but never peace.
Along the town's tumultuous arteries
He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame:
Each night the whistles in the bay, the same
Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars:
For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars
Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame.
Up to his attic came the city cries --
The throes with which her iron sinews heave --
And yet forever behind prison doors
Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes

Turn to yon vale beneath, whose tangled shade
Excludes the blazing torch of noon-day light,
Where sportive Fawns, and dimpled Loves invite,
The bow'r of Pleasure opens to the glade:
Lull'd by soft flutes, on leaves of violets laid,
There witching beauty greets the ravish'd sight,
More gentle than the arbitress of night
In all her silv'ry panoply array'd!
The birds breathe bliss! light zephyrs kiss the ground,
Stealing the hyacinth's divine perfume;
While from the pellucid fountains glitt'ring round,

Unequalled Virgin, the second ornament
Of the human race, whose dignity has not diminished
Her humility, nor has humility lessened her generosity of heart,
O rare Mother of her own Creator!

You have crushed the head of the serpent whose venom
Has poisoned the entire world.
You assumed your place in Heaven above the angels' choir
And there, glorified, you partake of eternal joy.

For our souls you are like a moon
Which reflects the rays of eternal
Charity, as our grievous sinfulness

Descends on us like a night's dark shadow.

O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
Columbus found a world, and had no chart,
Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;
To trust the soul's invincible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
By which alone the mortal heart is led