XXVI.
JOY MAY KILL.
Non men gran grasia, donna.
Too much good luck no less than misery
May kill a man condemned to mortal pain,
If, lost to hope and chilled in every vein,
A sudden pardon comes to set him free.
Thus thy unwonted kindness shown to me
Amid the gloom where only sad thoughts reign,
With too much rapture bringing light again,
Threatens my life more than that agony.
Good news and bad may bear the self-same knife;
And death may follow both upon their flight;
For hearts that shrink or swell, alike will break.
Let then thy beauty, to preserve my life,
Temper the source of this supreme delight,
Lest joy so poignant slay a soul so weak.
XXVII.
NO ESCAPE FROM LOVE.
Non posso altra figura.
I cannot by the utmost flight of thought
Conceive another form of air or clay,
Wherewith against thy beauty to array
My wounded heart in armour fancy-wrought:
For, lacking thee, so low my state is brought,
That Love hath stolen all my strength away;
Whence, when I fain would halve my griefs, they weigh
With double sorrow, and I sink to nought.
Thus all in vain my soul to scape thee flies,
For ever faster flies her beauteous foe:
From the swift-footed feebly run the slow!
Yet with his hands Love wipes my weeping eyes,
Saying, this toil will end in happy cheer;
What costs the heart so much, must needs be dear!
XXVIII.
THE HEAVENLY BIRTH OF LOVE AND BEAUTY.
La vita del mie amor.
This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love:
The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;
Nor harbours it in any mortal part,
Where erring thought or ill desire may move.
When first Love sent our souls from God above,
He fashioned me to see thee as thou art—
Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpart
In thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof.
As heat from fire, from loveliness divine
The mind that worships what recalls the sun
From whence she sprang, can be divided never:
And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine,
Burning unto those orbs of light I run,
There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever.
XXIX.
LOVE'S DILEMMA.
I' mi credetti.
I deemed upon that day when first I knew
So many peerless beauties blent in one,
That, like an eagle gazing on the sun,
Mine eyes might fix on the least part of you.
That dream hath vanished, and my hope is flown;
For he who fain a seraph would pursue
Wingless, hath cast words to the winds, and dew
On stones, and gauged God's reason with his own.
If then my heart cannot endure the blaze
Of beauties infinite that blind these eyes,
Nor yet can bear to be from you divided,
What fate is mine? Who guides or guards my ways,
Seeing my soul, so lost and ill-betided,
Burns in your presence, in your absence dies?
XXX.
TO TOMMASO DE' CAVALIERI.
LOVE THE LIGHT-GIVER.
Veggio co' bei vostri occhi.
With your fair eyes a charming light I see,
For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain;
Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain
Which my lame feet find all too strong for me;
Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly;
Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain;
E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again,
Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.
Your will includes and is the lord of mine;
Life to my thoughts within your heart is given;
My words begin to breathe upon your breath:
Like to the moon am I, that cannot shine
Alone; for lo! our eyes see nought in heaven
Save what the living sun illumineth.
XXXI.
To TOMMASO DE' CAVALIERI.
LOVE'S LORDSHIP.
A che più debb' io.
Why should I seek to ease intense desire
With still more tears and windy words of grief,
When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief
To souls whom love hath robed around with fire?
Why need my aching heart to death aspire,
When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief
Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief,
Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!
Therefore because I cannot shun the blow
I rather seek, say who must rule my breast,
Gliding between her gladness and her woe?
If only chains and bands can make me blest,
No marvel if alone and bare I go
An arméd Knight's captive and slave confessed.
XXXII.
LOVE'S EXPOSTULATION.
S' un casto amor.
If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill,
If fortune bind both lovers in one bond,
If either at the other's grief despond,
If both be governed by one life, one will;
If in two bodies one soul triumph still,
Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond,
If Love with one blow and one golden wand
Have power both smitten breasts to pierce and thrill;
If each the other love, himself forgoing,
With such delight, such savour, and so well,
That both to one sole end their wills combine;
If thousands of these thoughts, all thought outgoing,
Fail the least part of their firm love to tell:
Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine?
XXXIII.
FIRST READING.
A PRAYER TO NATURE.
AMOR REDIVIVUS.
Perchè tuo gran bellezze.
That thy great beauty on our earth may be
Shrined in a lady softer and more kind,
I call on nature to collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,
And save them to restore the radiancy
Of thy bright face in some fair form designed
By heaven; and may Love ever bear in mind
To mould her heart of grace and courtesy.
I call on nature too to keep my sighs,
My scattered tears to take and recombine,
And give to him who loves that fair again:
More happy he perchance shall move those eyes
To mercy by the griefs wherewith I pine,
Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!
XXXIII.
SECOND READING.
A PRAYER TO NATURE.
AMOR REDIVIVUS.
Sol perchè tue bellezze.
If only that thy beauties here may be
Deathless through Time that rends the wreaths he twined,
I trust that Nature will collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,
And keep them for a birth more happily
Born under better auspices, refined
Into a heavenly form of nobler mind,
And dowered with all thine angel purity.
Ah me! and may heaven also keep my sighs,
My scattered tears preserve and reunite,
And give to him who loves that fair again!
More happy he perchance shall move those eyes
To mercy by the griefs my manhood blight,
Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!
XXXIV.
LOVE'S FURNACE.
Sì amico al freddo sasso.
So friendly is the fire to flinty stone,
That, struck therefrom and kindled to a blaze,
It burns the stone, and from the ash doth raise
What lives thenceforward binding stones in one:
Kiln-hardened this resists both frost and sun,
Acquiring higher worth for endless days—
As the purged soul from hell returns with praise,
Amid the heavenly host to take her throne.
E'en so the fire struck from my soul, that lay
Close-hidden in my heart, may temper me,
Till burned and slaked to better life I rise.
If, made mere smoke and dust, I live to-day,
Fire-hardened I shall live eternally;
Such gold, not iron, my spirit strikes and tries.
XXXV.
LOVE'S PARADOXES.
Sento d' un foco.
Far off with fire I feel a cold face lit,
That makes me burn, the while itself doth freeze:
Two fragile arms enchain me, which with ease,
Unmoved themselves, can move weights infinite.
A soul none knows but I, most exquisite,
That, deathless, deals me death, my spirit sees:
I meet with one who, free, my heart doth seize:
And who alone can cheer, hath tortured it.
How can it be that from one face like thine
My own should feel effects so contrary,
Since ill comes not from things devoid of ill?
That loveliness perchance doth make me pine,
Even as the sun, whose fiery beams we see,
Inflames the world, while he is temperate still.
XXXVI.
LOVE MISINTERPRETED.
Se l'immortal desio.
If the undying thirst that purifies
Our mortal thoughts, could draw mine to the day,
Perchance the lord who now holds cruel sway
In Love's high house, would prove more kindly-wise.
But since the laws of heaven immortalise
Our souls, and doom our flesh to swift decay,
Tongue cannot tell how fair, how pure as day,
Is the soul's thirst that far beyond it lies.
How then, ah woe is me! shall that chaste fire,
Which burns the heart within me, be made known,
If sense finds only sense in what it sees?
All my fair hours are turned to miseries
With my loved lord, who minds but lies alone;
For, truth to tell, who trusts not is a liar.
XXXVII.
PERHAPS TO VITTORIA COLONNA.
LOVE'S SERVITUDE.
S' alcun legato è pur.
He who is bound by some great benefit,
As to be raised from death to life again,
How shall he recompense that gift, or gain
Freedom from servitude so infinite?
Yet if 'twere possible to pay the debt,
He'd lose that kindness which we entertain
For those who serve us well; since it is plain
That kindness needs some boon to quicken it.
Wherefore, O lady, to maintain thy grace,
So far above my fortune, what I bring
Is rather thanklessness than courtesy:
For if both met as equals face to face,
She whom I love could not be called my king;—
There is no lordship in equality.
XXXVIII.
LOVE'S VAIN EXPENSE.
Rendete a gli occhi miei.
Give back unto mine eyes, ye fount and rill,
Those streams, not yours, that are so full and strong,
That swell your springs, and roll your waves along
With force unwonted in your native hill!
And thou, dense air, weighed with my sighs so chill,
That hidest heaven's own light thick mists among,
Give back those sighs to my sad heart, nor wrong
My visual ray with thy dark face of ill!
Let earth give back the footprints that I wore,
That the bare grass I spoiled may sprout again;
And Echo, now grown deaf, my cries return!
Loved eyes, unto mine eyes those looks restore,
And let me woo another not in vain,
Since how to please thee I shall never learn!
XXXIX.
LOVE'S ARGUMENT WITH REASON.
La ragion meco si lamenta.
Reason laments and grieves full sore with me,
The while I hope by loving to be blest;
With precepts sound and true philosophy
My shame she quickens thus within my breast:
'What else but death will that sun deal to thee—
Nor like the phoenix in her flaming nest?'
Yet nought avails this wise morality;
No hand can save a suicide confessed.
I know my doom; the truth I apprehend:
But on the other side my traitorous heart
Slays me whene'er to wisdom's words I bend.
Between two deaths my lady stands apart:
This death I dread; that none can comprehend.
In this suspense body and soul must part.
XL.
FIRST READING.
LOVE'S LOADSTONE.
No so s' è la desiata luce.
I know not if it be the longed-for light
Of her first Maker which the spirit feels;
Or if a time-old memory reveals
Some other beauty for the heart's delight;
Or fame or dreams beget that vision bright,
Sweet to the eyes, which through the bosom steals,
Leaving I know not what that wounds and heals,
And now perchance hath made me weep outright.
Be this what this may be, 'tis this I seek:
Nor guide have I; nor know I where to find
That burning fire; yet some one seems to lead.
This, since I saw thee, lady, makes me weak;
A bitter-sweet sways here and there my mind,
And sure I am thine eyes this mischief breed.
XL.
SECOND READING.
LOVE'S LOADSTONE.
Non so se s' é l' immaginata luce.
I know not if it be the fancied light
Which every man or more or less doth feel;
Or if the mind and memory reveal
Some other beauty for the heart's delight;
Or if within the soul the vision bright
Of her celestial home once more doth steal,
Drawing our better thoughts with pure appeal
To the true Good above all mortal sight:
This light I long for and unguided seek;
This fire that burns my heart, I cannot find;
Nor know the way, though some one seems to lead.
This, since I saw thee, lady, makes me weak:
A bitter-sweet sways here and there my mind;
And sure I am thine eyes this mischief breed.
XLI.
LIGHT AND DARKNESS.
Colui che fece.
He who ordained, when first the world began,
Time, that was not before creation's hour,
Divided it, and gave the sun's high power
To rule the one, the moon the other span:
Thence fate and changeful chance and fortune's ban
Did in one moment down on mortals shower:
To me they portioned darkness for a dower;
Dark hath my lot been since I was a man.
Myself am ever mine own counterfeit;
And as deep night grows still more dim and dun,
So still of more misdoing must I rue:
Meanwhile this solace to my soul is sweet,
That my black night doth make more clear the sun
Which at your birth was given to wait on you.
XLII.
SACRED NIGHT.
Ogni van chiuso.
All hollow vaults and dungeons sealed from sight,
All caverns circumscribed with roof and wall,
Defend dark Night, though noon around her fall,
From the fierce play of solar day-beams bright.
But if she be assailed by fire or light,
Her powers divine are nought; they tremble all
Before things far more vile and trivial—
Even a glow-worm can confound their might.
The earth that lies bare to the sun, and breeds
A thousand germs that burgeon and decay—
This earth is wounded by the ploughman's share:
But only darkness serves for human seeds;
Night therefore is more sacred far than day,
Since man excels all fruits however fair.
XLIII.
THE IMPEACHMENT OF NIGHT.
Perchè Febo non torce.
What time bright Phoebus doth not stretch and bend
His shining arms around this terrene sphere,
The people call that season dark and drear
Night, for the cause they do not comprehend.
So weak is Night that if our hand extend
A glimmering torch, her shadows disappear,
Leaving her dead; like frailest gossamere,
Tinder and steel her mantle rive and rend.
Nay, if this Night be anything at all,
Sure she is daughter of the sun and earth;
This holds, the other spreads that shadowy pall.
Howbeit they err who praise this gloomy birth,
So frail and desolate and void of mirth
That one poor firefly can her might appal.
XLIV.
THE DEFENCE OF NIGHT.
O nott' o dolce tempo.
O night, O sweet though sombre span of time!—
All things find rest upon their journey's end—
Whoso hath praised thee, well doth apprehend;
And whoso honours thee, hath wisdom's prime.
Our cares thou canst to quietude sublime;
For dews and darkness are of peace the friend:
Often by thee in dreams upborne, I wend
From earth to heaven, where yet I hope to climb.
Thou shade of Death, through whom the soul at length
Shuns pain and sadness hostile to the heart,
Whom mourners find their last and sure relief!
Thou dost restore our suffering flesh to strength,
Driest our tears, assuagest every smart,
Purging the spirits of the pure from grief.
XLV.
LOVE FEEDS THE FLAME OF AGE.
Quand' il servo il signior.
When masters bind a slave with cruel chain,
And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent,
Use tames his temper to imprisonment,
And hardly would he fain be free again.
Use curbs the snake and tiger, and doth train
Fierce woodland lions to bear chastisement;
And the young artist, all with toil forspent,
By constant use a giant's strength doth gain
But with the force of flame it is not so:
For while fire sucks the sap of the green wood,
It warms a frore old man and makes him grow;
With such fine heat of youth and lustihood
Filling his heart and teaching it to glow,
That love enfolds him with beatitude.
If then in playful mood
He sport and jest, old age need no man blame;
For loving things divine implies no shame.
The soul that knows her aim,
Sins not by loving God's own counterfeit—
Due measure kept, and bounds, and order meet.
XLVI.
LOVE'S FLAME DOTH FEED ON AGE.
Se da' prim' anni.
If some mild heat of love in youth confessed
Burns a fresh heart with swift consuming fire,
What will the force be of a flame more dire
Shut up within an old man's cindery breast?
If the mere lapse of lengthening years hath pressed
So sorely that life, strength, and vigour tire,
How shall he fare who must ere long expire,
When to old age is added love's unrest?
Weak as myself, he will be whirled away
Like dust by winds kind in their cruelty,
Robbing the loathly worm of its last prey.
A little flame consumed and fed on me
In my green age: now that the wood is dry,
What hope against this fire more fierce have I?
XLVII.
BEAUTY'S INTOLERABLE SPLENDOUR.
Se 'l foco alla bellezza.
If but the fire that lightens in thine eyes
Were equal with their beauty, all the snow
And frost of all the world would melt and glow
Like brands that blaze beneath fierce tropic skies.
But heaven in mercy to our miseries
Dulls and divides the fiery beams that flow
From thy great loveliness, that we may go
Through this stern mortal life in tranquil wise.
Thus beauty burns not with consuming rage;
For so much only of the heavenly light
Inflames our love as finds a fervent heart.
This is my case, lady, in sad old age:
If seeing thee, I do not die outright,
'Tis that I feel thy beauty but in part.
XLVIII.
LOVE'S EVENING.
Se 'l troppo indugio.
What though long waiting wins more happiness
Than petulant desire is wont to gain,
My luck in latest age hath brought me pain,
Thinking how brief must be an old man's bliss.
Heaven, if it heed our lives, can hardly bless
This fire of love when frosts are wont to reign:
For so I love thee, lady, and my strain
Of tears through age exceeds in tenderness.
Yet peradventure though my day is done,—
Though nearly past the setting mid thick cloud
And frozen exhalations sinks my sun,—
If love to only mid-day be allowed,
And I an old man in my evening burn,
You, lady, still my night to noon may turn.
XLIX.
LOVE'S EXCUSE.
Dal dolcie pianto.
From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace
Eternal to a brief and hollow truce,
How have I fallen!—when 'tis truth we lose,
Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses.
I know not if my heart bred this disease,
That still more pleasing grows with growing use;
Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the hues
And fires of Paradise—less fair than these.
Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent
From heaven on high to make our earth divine:
Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content;
For in thy sight what could I do but pine?
If God himself thus rules my destiny,
Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?
L.
IN LOVE'S OWN TIME.
S' i' avessi creduto.
Had I but earlier known that from the eyes
Of that bright soul that fires me like the sun,
I might have drawn new strength my race to run,
Burning as burns the phoenix ere it dies;
Even as the stag or lynx or leopard flies
To seek his pleasure and his pain to shun,
Each word, each smile of her would I have won,
Flying where now sad age all flight denies.
Yet why complain? For even now I find
In that glad angel's face, so full of rest,
Health and content, heart's ease and peace of mind
Perchance I might have been less simply blest,
Finding her sooner: if 'tis age alone
That lets me soar with her to seek God's throne.
LI.
FIRST READING.
LOVE IN YOUTH AND AGE.
Tornami al tempo.
Bring back the time when blind desire ran free,
With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight;
Give back the buried face, once angel-bright,
That hides in earth all comely things from me;
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
So toilsome-slow to one whose hairs are white;
Those tears and flames that in one breast unite;
If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!
Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive
Only on bitter honey-dews of tears.
Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.
My soul that toward the other shore doth strive,
Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears;
And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.
LI.
SECOND READING.
LOVE IN YOUTH AND AGE.
Tornami al tempo.
Bring back the time when glad desire ran free
With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight,
The tears and flames that in one breast unite,
If thou art fain once more to conquer me!
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
So toilsome-slow to him whose hairs are white!
Give back the buried face once angel-bright,
That taxed all Nature's art and industry.
O Love! an old man finds it hard to chase
Thy flying pinions! Thou hast left thy nest;
Nor is my heart as light as heretofore.
Put thy gold arrows to the string once more:
Then if Death hear my prayer and grant me grace,
My grief I shall forget, again made blest.
LII.
CELESTIAL LOVE.
Non vider gli occhi miei.
I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Else should we still to transient loves be bound;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond
Unto the Love of Loves that never dies.
Nay, things that die, cannot assuage the thirst
Of souls undying; nor Eternity
Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth.
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst:
This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high
Our friends on earth—higher in heaven through death.
LIII.
CELESTIAL AND EARTHLY LOVE.
Non è sempre di colpa.
Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:
If it be love of loveliness divine,
It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
For rays of God's own grace to enter in.
Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win
Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline;
'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine
Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.
The love of that whereof I speak, ascends:
Woman is different far; the love of her
But ill befits a heart all manly wise.
The one love soars, the other downward tends;
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,
And still his arrow at base quarry flies.
LIV.
LOVE LIFTS TO GOD.
Veggio nel tuo bel viso.
From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord,
That which no mortal tongue can rightly say;
The soul, imprisoned in her house of clay,
Holpen by thee to God hath often soared:
And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde
Attribute what their grosser wills obey,
Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,
This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.
Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth,
Resemble for the soul that rightly sees,
That source of bliss divine which gave us birth:
Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances
Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,
I rise to God and make death sweet by thee.
LV.
LOVE'S ENTREATY.
Tu sa' ch' i' so, Signor mie.
Thou knowest, love, I know that thou dost know
That I am here more near to thee to be,
And knowest that I know thou knowest me:
What means it then that we are sundered so?
If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,
If it is real, this sweet expectancy,
Break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee;
For pain in prison pent hath double woe.
Because in thee I love, O my loved lord,
What thou best lovest, be not therefore stern:
Souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry!
I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored;
Yet living man that beauty scarce can learn,
And he who fain would find it, first must die.
LVI.
FIRST READING.
HEAVEN-BORN BEAUTY.
Per ritornar là.
As one who will reseek her home of light,
Thy form immortal to this prison-house
Descended, like an angel piteous,
To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright.
'Tis this that thralls my soul in love's delight,
Not thy clear face of beauty glorious;
For he who harbours virtue, still will choose
To love what neither years nor death can blight.
So fares it ever with things high and rare
Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above
Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime:
Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime;
Which, since they image Him, alone I love.
LVI.
SECOND READING.
HEAVEN-BORN BEAUTY.
Venne, non so ben donde.
It came, I know not whence, from far above,
That clear immortal flame that still doth rise
Within thy sacred breast, and fills the skies,
And heals all hearts, and adds to heaven new love.
This burns me, this, and the pure light thereof;
Not thy fair face, thy sweet untroubled eyes:
For love that is not love for aught that dies,
Dwells in the soul where no base passions move.
If then such loveliness upon its own
Should graft new beauties in a mortal birth,
The sheath bespeaks the shining blade within.
To gain our love God hath not clearer shown
Himself elsewhere: thus heaven doth vie with earth
To make thee worthy worship without sin.
LVII.
FIRST READING.
CARNAL AND SPIRITUAL LOVE.
Passa per gli occhi.
Swift through the eyes unto the heart within
All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray;
So smooth and broad and open is the way
That thousands and not hundreds enter in.
Burdened with scruples and weighed down with sin,
These mortal beauties fill me with dismay;
Nor find I one that doth not strive to stay
My soul on transient joy, or lets me win
The heaven I yearn for. Lo, when erring love—
Who fills the world, howe'er his power we shun,
Else were the world a grave and we undone—
Assails the soul, if grace refuse to fan
Our purged desires and make them soar above,
What grief it were to have been born a man!
LVII.
SECOND READING.
CARNAL AND SPIRITUAL LOVE.
Passa per gli occhi.
Swift through the eyes unto the heart within
All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray;
So smooth and broad and open is the way
That thousands and not hundreds enter in
Of every age and sex: whence I begin,
Burdened with griefs, but more with dull dismay,
To fear; nor find mid all their bright array
One that with full content my heart may win.
If mortal beauty be the food of love,
It came not with the soul from heaven, and thus
That love itself must be a mortal fire:
But if love reach to nobler hopes above,
Thy love shall scorn me not nor dread desire
That seeks a carnal prey assailing us.
LVIII.
LOVE AND DEATH.
Ognor che l' idol mio.
Whene'er the idol of these eyes appears
Unto my musing heart so weak and strong,
Death comes between her and my soul ere long
Chasing her thence with troops of gathering fears.
Nathless this violence my spirit cheers
With better hope than if she had no wrong;
While Love invincible arrays the throng
Of dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers:
But once, he argues, can a mortal die;
But once be born: and he who dies afire,
What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me?
That burning love whereby the soul flies free,
Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspire
Like gold refined in flame to God on high.
LIX.
LOVE IS A REFINER'S FIRE.
Non più ch' 'l foco il fabbro.
It is with fire that blacksmiths iron subdue
Unto fair form, the image of their thought:
Nor without fire hath any artist wrought
Gold to its utmost purity of hue.
Nay, nor the unmatched phoenix lives anew,
Unless she burn: if then I am distraught
By fire, I may to better life be brought
Like those whom death restores nor years undo.
The fire whereof I speak, is my great cheer;
Such power it hath to renovate and raise
Me who was almost numbered with the dead;
And since by nature fire doth find its sphere
Soaring aloft, and I am all ablaze,
Heavenward with it my flight must needs be sped.
LX.
FIRST READING.
LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION.
Ben può talor col mio.
Sometimes my love I dare to entertain
With soaring hope not over-credulous;
Since if all human loves were impious,
Unto what end did God the world ordain?
For loving thee what license is more plain
Than that I praise thereby the glorious
Source of all joys divine, that comfort us
In thee, and with chaste fires our soul sustain?
False hope belongs unto that love alone
Which with declining beauty wanes and dies,
And, like the face it worships, fades away.
That hope is true which the pure heart hath known,
Which alters not with time or death's decay,
Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.
LX.
SECOND READING.
LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION.
Ben può talor col casto.
It must be right sometimes to entertain
Chaste love with hope not over-credulous;
Since if all human loves were impious,
Unto what end did God the world ordain?
If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign,
'Tis for the sake of beauty glorious
Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us,
And drives all evil thought from its domain.
That is not love whose tyranny we own
In loveliness that every moment dies;
Which, like the face it worships, fades away:
True love is that which the pure heart hath known,
Which alters not with time or death's decay,
Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.
LXI.
AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.
IRREPARABLE LOSS.
Se 'l mie rozzo martello.
When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone
Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will,
Following his hand who wields and guides it still,
It moves upon another's feet alone:
But that which dwells in heaven, the world doth fill
With beauty by pure motions of its own;
And since tools fashion tools which else were none,
Its life makes all that lives with living skill.
Now, for that every stroke excels the more
The higher at the forge it doth ascend,
Her soul that fashioned mine hath sought the skies:
Wherefore unfinished I must meet my end,
If God, the great artificer, denies
That aid which was unique on earth before.
LXII.
AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.
LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER DEATH.
Quand' el ministro de' sospir.
When she who was the source of all my sighs,
Fled from the world, herself, my straining sight,
Nature who gave us that unique delight,
Was sunk in shame, and we had weeping eyes.
Yet shall not vauntful Death enjoy this prize,
This sun of suns which then he veiled in night;
For Love hath triumphed, lifting up her light
On earth and mid the saints in Paradise.
What though remorseless and impiteous doom
Deemed that the music of her deeds would die,
And that her splendour would be sunk in gloom,
The poet's page exalts her to the sky
With life more living in the lifeless tomb,
And death translates her soul to reign on high.
LXIII.
AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.
AFTER SUNSET.
Be' mi dove'.
Well might I in those days so fortunate,
What time the sun lightened my path above,
Have soared from earth to heaven, raised by her love
Who winged my labouring soul and sweetened fate.
That sun hath set; and I with hope elate
Who deemed that those bright days would never move,
Find that my thankless soul, deprived thereof,
Declines to death, while heaven still bars the gate.
Love lent me wings; my path was like a stair;
A lamp unto my feet, that sun was given;
And death was safety and great joy to find.
But dying now, I shall not climb to heaven;
Nor can mere memory cheer my heart's despair:—
What help remains when hope is left behind?
LXIV.
AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.
A WASTED BRAND.
Qual maraviglia è.
If being near the fire I burned with it,
Now that its flame is quenched and doth not show,
What wonder if I waste within and glow,
Dwindling away to cinders bit by bit?
While still it burned, I saw so brightly lit
That splendour whence I drew my grievous woe,
That from its sight alone could pleasure flow,
And death and torment both seemed exquisite.
But now that heaven hath robbed me of the blaze
Of that great fire which burned and nourished me,
A coal that smoulders 'neath the ash am I.
Unless Love furnish wood fresh flames to raise,
I shall expire with not one spark to see,
So quickly into embers do I die!
LXV.
TO GIORGIO VASARI.
ON THE BRINK OF DEATH.
Giunto è già.
Now hath my life across a stormy sea
Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all
Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall
Of good and evil for eternity.
Now know I well how that fond phantasy
Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall
Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal
Is that which all men seek unwillingly.
Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed,
What are they when the double death is nigh?
The one I know for sure, the other dread.
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul that turns to His great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.
LXVI.
TO GIORGIO VASARI.
VANITY OF VANITIES.
Le favole del mondo.
The fables of the world have filched away
The time I had for thinking upon God;
His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod,
Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway.
What makes another wise, leads me astray,
Slow to discern the bad path I have trod:
Hope fades; but still desire ascends that God
May free me from self-love, my sure decay.
Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth!
Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise,
Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage.
Teach me to hate the world so little worth,
And all the lovely things I clasp and prize;
That endless life, ere death, may be my wage.
LXVII.
A PRAYER FOR FAITH.
Non è più bassa.
There's not on earth a thing more vile and base
Than, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be:
For pardon prays my own debility,
Yearning in vain to lift me to Thy face.
Stretch to me, Lord, that chain whose links enlace
All heavenly gifts and all felicity—
Faith, whereunto I strive perpetually,
Yet cannot find (my fault) her perfect grace.
That gift of gifts, the rarer 'tis, the more
I count it great; more great, because to earth
Without it neither peace nor joy is given.
If Thou Thy blood so lovingly didst pour,
Let not that bounty fail or suffer dearth,
Withholding Faith that opes the doors of heaven.
LXVIII.
TO MONSIGNOR LODOVICO BECCADELLI.
URBINO.
Per croce e grazia.
God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied,
Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know:
Yet ere we yield our breath, on earth below
Why need a little solace be denied?
Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide
Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow
Can make the soul her ancient love forgo;
Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied.
Borne by these wings with thee I dwell for aye,
And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk,
Who, were he living, now perchance would be,
For so 'twas planned, thy guest as well as I:
Warned by his death another way I walk
To meet him where he waits to live with me.
LXIX.
WAITING FOR DEATH.
Di morte certo.
My death must come; but when, I do not know:
Life's short, and little life remains for me:
Fain would my flesh abide; my soul would flee
Heavenward, for still she calls on me to go.
Blind is the world; and evil here below
O'erwhelms and triumphs over honesty:
The light is quenched; quenched too is bravery:
Lies reign, and truth hath ceased her face to show.
When will that day dawn, Lord, for which he waits
Who trusts in Thee? Lo, this prolonged delay
Destroys all hope and robs the soul of life.
Why streams the light from those celestial gates,
If death prevent the day of grace, and stay
Our souls for ever in the toils of strife?
LXX.
A PRAYER FOR STRENGTH.
Carico d'anni.
Burdened with years and full of sinfulness,
With evil custom grown inveterate,
Both deaths I dread that close before me wait,
Yet feed my heart on poisonous thoughts no less.
No strength I find in mine own feebleness
To change or life or love or use or fate,
Unless Thy heavenly guidance come, though late,
Which only helps and stays our nothingness.
'Tis not enough, dear Lord, to make me yearn
For that celestial home, where yet my soul
May be new made, and not, as erst, of nought:
Nay, ere Thou strip her mortal vestment, turn
My steps toward the steep ascent, that whole
And pure before Thy face she may be brought.
LXXI.
A PRAYER FOR PURIFICATION.
Forse perchè d' altrui.
Perchance that I might learn what pity is,
That I might laugh at erring men no more,
Secure in my own strength as heretofore,
My soul hath fallen from her state of bliss:
Nor know I under any flag but this
How fighting I may 'scape those perils sore,
Or how survive the rout and horrid roar
Of adverse hosts, if I Thy succour miss.
O flesh! O blood! O cross! O pain extreme!
By you may those foul sins be purified,
Wherein my fathers were, and I was born!
Lo, Thou alone art good: let Thy supreme
Pity my state of evil cleanse and hide—
So near to death, so far from God, forlorn.
LXXII.
A PRAYER FOR AID.
Deh fammiti vedere.
Oh, make me see Thee, Lord, where'er I go!
If mortal beauty sets my soul on fire,
That flame when near to Thine must needs expire,
And I with love of only Thee shall glow.
Dear Lord, Thy help I seek against this woe,
These torments that my spirit vex and tire;
Thou only with new strength canst re-inspire
My will, my sense, my courage faint and low.
Thou gavest me on earth this soul divine;
And Thou within this body weak and frail
Didst prison it—how sadly there to live!
How can I make its lot less vile than mine?
Without Thee, Lord, all goodness seems to fail.
To alter fate is God's prerogative.
LXXIII.
AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS.
Scarco d' un' importuna.
Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,
Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,
Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,
As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.
Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand,
With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide
Promise of help and mercies multiplied,
And hope that yet my soul secure may stand.
Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see
My evil past, Thy chastened ears to hear
And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime:
Let Thy blood only lave and succour me,
Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer,
As older still I grow with lengthening time.
LXXIV.
FIRST READING.
A PRAYER FOR GRACE IN DEATH.
S' avvien che spesso.
What though strong love of life doth flatter me
With hope of yet more years on earth to stay,
Death none the less draws nearer day by day,
Who to sad souls alone comes lingeringly.
Yet why desire long life and jollity,
If in our griefs alone to God we pray?
Glad fortune, length of days, and pleasure slay
The soul that trusts to their felicity.
Then if at any hour through grace divine
The fiery shafts of love and faith that cheer
And fortify the soul, my heart assail,
Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine,
Straight may I wing my way to heaven; for here
With lengthening days good thoughts and wishes fail.
LXXIV.
SECOND READING.
A PRAYER FOR GRACE IN DEATH.
Parmi che spesso.
Ofttimes my great desire doth flatter me
With hope on earth yet many years to stay:
Still Death, the more I love it, day by day
Takes from the life I love so tenderly.
What better time for that dread change could be,
If in our griefs alone to God we pray?
Oh, lead me, Lord, oh, lead me far away
From every thought that lures my soul from Thee!
Yea, if at any hour, through grace of Thine,
The fervent zeal of love and faith that cheer
And fortify the soul, my heart assail.
Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine,
Plant, like a saint in heaven, that virtue here;
For, lacking Thee, all good must faint and fail.
LXXV.
HEART-COLDNESS.
Vorrei voler, Signior.
Fain would I wish what my heart cannot will:
Between it and the fire a veil of ice
Deadens the fire, so that I deal in lies;
My words and actions are discordant still.
I love Thee with my tongue, then mourn my fill;
For love warms not my heart, nor can I rise,
Or ope the doors of Grace, who from the skies
Might flood my soul, and pride and passion kill.
Rend Thou the veil, dear Lord! Break Thou that wall
Which with its stubbornness retards the rays
Of that bright sun this earth hath dulled for me!
Send down Thy promised light to cheer and fall
On Thy fair spouse, that I with love may blaze,
And, free from doubt, my heart feel only Thee!
LXXVI.
THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
Non fur men lieti.
Not less elate than smitten with wild woe
To see not them but Thee by death undone,
Were those blest souls, when Thou above the sun
Didst raise, by dying, men that lay so low:
Elate, since freedom from all ills that flow
From their first fault for Adam's race was won;
Sore smitten, since in torment fierce God's son
Served servants on the cruel cross below.
Heaven showed she knew Thee, who Thou wert and whence,
Veiling her eyes above the riven earth;
The mountains trembled and the seas were troubled.
He took the Fathers from hell's darkness dense:
The torments of the damnéd fiends redoubled:
Man only joyed, who gained baptismal birth.
LXXVII.
THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.
Mentre m' attrista.
Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer
In thinking of the past, when I recall
My weakness and my sins, and reckon all
The vain expense of days that disappear:
This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear
The frailty of what men delight miscall;
But saddens me to think how rarely fall
God's grace and mercies in life's latest year.
For though Thy promises our faith compel,
Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain
That pity will condone our long neglect?
Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well
How without measure was Thy martyr's pain,
How measureless the gifts we dare expect.