WHEREIN HIS LADY SINGS

If Love her lovely eyes to earth compel,
And in a sigh resolving all her soul,
Permit the music of her voice to roll
Heavenward like a soft angelic bell,
My heart, divorced so sweetly from its shell,
(New thoughts, new wishes roused beyond control)
" O Heaven, " it cries, " grant me this golden dole,
That, listening, Death may ravish me as well! "
But ah, the sense enchanted in that mesh
Melodious, the will inflamed to hear
More and yet more of Heaven so wildly near,

WHEREIN HE ENVIES WHATSOEVER OF LOVELY IN NATURE HER PRESENCE MAKES LOVELIER

O rich and happy flowers forever apart
On which my pensive Lady puts her heel!
O golden acres privileged to feel
Her phrase, her footprint pressed upon your heart!
Trees silver green with April's earliest art;
Pale passionate violets; dark grove that can steal
Only so much of sun as may reveal
Your swarthy steeples in a radiant dart!
O comely landscape! O translucent stream
Mirroring her pure face, her intense eyes
And seizing all alive their bluest beam!

WHEREIN HER IMAGE IS FIXED FOREVER IN HIS HEART

Wherever I rest or turn my tired eyes
To cool them of desires that draw them still,
Love paints the lovely Lady at his will
That passion may stay green; and, being wise,
Deep pity with sweet anguish Love applies —
For generous ardours gentle bosoms fill —
While, equally constrained, my fond ears thrill
To her soft syllables, her seraph sighs.
Love and pure Truth were both in league to tell
The virtues without fellows on this sphere,
Whose equals never charmed the stars; nor fell

WHEREIN LAURA WEEPS

Never was Jupiter so set on thunder,
Nor Caesar never so resolved to shatter
But Mercy like a blast would swoop to scatter
The flame, or tear the hand and sword asunder.
Milady wept: my Lord said (O sweet blunder!)
That I should see her, hear her sorrows flatter
My soul with listening, and thrill to the matter
And very marrow of my bones with wonder.
To me Love pointed, carved into my breast
That bright and silver tear, those mysteries
Cut with a diamond at Love's behest,

WHEREIN LOVE GUIDES HIM TO REASON

Never fled shaken mariner to port
From the black welter, from the hurricane,
As from the mutinous tumult of the brain
I tear away — from thoughts of dark resort;
Nor ever blazed a bolt from heaven's fort
Blasting the mortal sight, as with rich pain
And pride and passion burned that matchless twain
Wherein Love tips the gold barbs of his sport.
Throned in his own light there he lords it, there —
Not blind, but quivered, naked — or almost:
A boy alive, not mythical, no dear ghost;

WHEREIN HE RECALLS THE FIRST SIGHT OF LAURA AND LOVE

Never so splendidly did the sun arise
When the sky stood most purged of taint and mist,
Nor, after rain, has the rainbow's amethyst
In the washed air displayed so many dyes
As are the colours that against my eyes
Dazzled that day I strapped upon my wrist
Love's load, that face (the florid I resist
In speech) beyond all mortal rivalries.
I saw Love turning, saw his eyes at turning
Look with such light upon me, such sweet burning
That all things else went dark that day and since.

WHEREIN HE ENLARGES UPON LOVE'S COURAGE AND COWARDICE

The long Love that is sovereign to my mind
And in my heart maintains his purple place,
With arrogant stride presses into my face,
Camps, flaunts his flag, parades there proud and blind:
She, that instructs to love and helps us find
Anguish therein, she would our heat abase
By reins of reason, shame and reverent grace,
And in our flesh the spurs of anger grind.
Whereupon Love to the heart's forest flies,
With sharp dismay quitting his enterprise,
And there in tears and panic he must hide.

WHEREIN HE EXPATIATES UPON LOVE'S PARADOXES

I find no peace, yet from all wars abstain me;
I fear, I hope, I burn — and straightway wizen;
I mount above the wind, yet stay unrisen;
Grasp the world — thus — yet nothing does it gain me.
Love neither lets me go, nor will detain me;
Gives me no leave, nor yet keeps me in prison:
I am not held, and yet the hard chain is on
The heart; he yields no death, yet will he chain me.
Sightless, I see; and without tongue, I sorrow;
I cling to life, and yet would gladly perish;

WHEREIN HE ENUMERATES THE WEAPONS IN LOVE'S ARSENAL

Love uses me as target for his lance,
As snow in sunlight or as wax in flame,
Or wind-swept cloud; and though upon your name
I call, O Laura, pity looks askance.
Your flashing eyes first caused the dart to dance
In my sick breast; nor time nor place can tame
Its fire. From you, that take no thought of blame,
Were born the pangs that thwart deliverance.
Each thought drives arrows, and your face a sun,
My passion's heat: and these Love urges well
To rend my heart, to dazzle me to hell.

WHEREIN HE TELLS THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

If this should not be Love, O God, what shakes me?
If Love it is, what strange, what rich delight!
If Love be kind, why has it fangs to bite?
If cruel, why so sweet the barb that rakes me?
If Love I crave, why this lament that breaks me?
If not, what tears or sighs can mend my plight?
O Death in Life, dear pain, where lies thy might
If I refuse the doom that overtakes me?
If I consent, without a cause I grieve:
So in a tempest do my fortunes heave,
By winds contrary and by waters tost;