English

WHEREIN HE LIKENS HIS PLIGHT TO THAT OF A LIMED BIRD

Love in the grass beneath a laurel bough —
O flower of heaven that feeds my constant flame!
O tree whose shade doth bless and breathe my shame! —
Love spread a net of pearls and gold (O Thou
Most subtle god!) baited, as always, now
With the same seed he sows and reaps, the same
Which I desire, the bittersweet, and blame,
As Adam, its bright burning on my brow;
And the fierce radiance that disputes the sun
Fell flashing round about, and in her hand,

WHEREIN HE ADDRESSES THE PO, ON LEAVING LAURA

Po, on thy powerful impetuous tide
Thou mayst this most corporeal shadow bear
Beyond; but the large spirit lodging there
Neither thy force nor any force may guide:
On generous winds, not pulled to either side,
It yearns against thy current, scorning air
And ocean, oar and sail to seek the lair
Of the proud laurel and the laurel's pride.
O lord of rivers, sultan of the east,
Thou dost confront the horses of the sun,
And, at his setting, leave a ruddier feast!

WHEREIN HE URGES UPON A FRIEND THAT MEEKNESS WHICH IS THE ONLY ARMOUR AGAINST LOVE'S GORGON LOOK

When my sweet foe, so often barricaded
In tall contempt, incites me past controlling,
One solace is vouchsafed, one sure consoling,
One strength alone by which my soul is aided:
Wherever her eyes — which would leave my life shaded
In utter darkness — in red anger rolling,
Meet mine, such true humility, such cajoling
Replies, their wrath to meekness is persuaded.
Ah, were it otherwise, less could I dare

WHEREIN HE HEARS BUT CANNOT HEED THE VOICE OF REASON

Love in one breath releases me and keeps me,
Encourages, accuses, freezes, burns me,
Now laughs, now leers, now summons, now he spurns me,
Now strides the stars, now in hell's horror steeps me;
Now up, now down, despoiled and spent he sweeps me,
Till from the path of true desire he turns me:
But this false joy only revulsion earns me,
Such tortured fruit my tortured spirit reaps me.
A gentle thought then indicates the course,
Not of such grief as drowns the desperate eye,

WHEREIN HER NEARNESS IS WELL WORTH THE VARIOUS PERILS OF THE JOURNEY

Love, who puts wings on heart and feet that so
To the third heaven his servant lightly soar,
In one brief day has many a stream and shore
In proud Ardennes permitted me to know.
How sweet alone and weaponless to go
Through danger swift to strike; how sweet — and more —
To plow the storm without a sail, an oar;
To overcome some vague but constant foe!
But, once arrived my desperate journey's end,
Recalling whence I came and by whose pinion,

ARMED IN HIS CONSTANCY, HE PASSES WITHOUT FEAR, WITHOUT AFFRONT THROUGH THE PERILS OF THE FOREST OF ARDENNES

Through forests harsh, inhospitable, I
Securely penetrate where travelers
Quake in their armour: for my fear defers
Only to that sun which darts dangerously
A soul-consuming flame. I lift love's cry
To her whom time and space hide not: all hers,
Her shape — even here! nor hers alone — in firs
And beeches see! — and in girls dryad-shy!
Meseems her voice is audible when the bird

WHEREIN LOVE'S SLAVE REMEMBERS

That time and place loom like a promontory
Which marked me manacled and branded so,
Love's hand upon my wrists and the bright blow
Of branding irons that made my pain a glory.
My heart, packed with his flame, like the soft fury
Of those dull moans my ears, my heart well know,
Is so ablaze, its very torments glow:
On these I live, my bitter golden story.
That single sun which burst upon my sight,
Burns with his blinding shafts my soul still taken

HUNGER FOR HER IS PREFERABLE TO HAPPINESS WITH ANOTHER

Ill-starred was I the morning I was born
(If that the constellations have such sway),
Hard was the cradle where I cried that day
And hard the earth by my young footsteps worn;
But harder still, the Lady whose bright scorn
With savage Love conspiring struck dismay
Into my heart... Her eyes, and only they,
Can cure the wound... Her eyes still find me torn.
O cruel Love, thou art, if anything,
More kind: for she, indifferent to the flame

WHEREIN HE TREATS OF LOVE IN EXTREMIS

Remarking in those orbs the orb of light
Where Love serenely rules that agitates
My own, the sick heart quits the soul's dim gates
Once more upon her paradisal flight;
Perceiving, then, how bitter-sweet her plight,
And the world-tangling web which she creates,
She sighs for thwarted love and hesitates,
Recalling the curb's tooth, the fanged spur's bite.
By these two mixed irreconcilables she,
With frozen or with fiery wishes filled,
Stands torn forever in a blind dispute:

WHEREIN HOPE MAY BE HARASSED, BUT NOT DESTROYED, BY ENVY

O Envy, virtue's constant nemesis,
Breathing hot challenge to the sweet and fine!
By what soft stealth, furtive and serpentine,
Have you gained ingress, changed her into this?
You have uprooted thence my deepest bliss,
Showing me, in this happier love than mine,
How she, that once bestowed such looks benign,
Seems cold now, coiled for a perpetual hiss.
Yet though, by subtle little cruelties,
You grudge my good and sneer at my distress,