WHEREIN THE DAWN DOUBLES HIS ANGUISH

When I behold the rose breathe on Aurora
Its lovely flush and see her bright locks dripping
A golden dew, this heart that watched night slipping
Exclaims, " Ah happy Tithonus, there lies Laura!
Thou canst each twilight sleep in the radiant aura
Of Love's dear head; but not for me the sipping
Of such delights, till the shears do their clipping
And Love is drenched by flower-handed Flora.
Between thee and thy Thetis looms no curtain:
That dusk will bring her back to thee is certain

IN SELF-EXILE AT VAUCLUSE

Nowhere before in one miraculous hour
Have I so clearly seen my soul's desire;
Nowhere before felt freedom lift me higher
In passionate music and in lyric power;
Never proved valley's dark sequestered bower
So perfect for the sigh, the singing fire:
Not even Cyprus could Love so inspire,
Not even Gnidos build Love such a tower.
Everything breathes and spins a single spell
Upon me, whispering love: the sky, the time,
The winds, the birds, water and boughs all rhyme

WHEREIN LOVE MUST COUNSEL SOME CHANGE WITHOUT DELAY

Love must advise me newly and that soon
For he has wrought upon my soul a snare,
Such terror and such anguish fasten there
That, though desire increases, hope is strewn.
Baffled and solitary, both by noon
And night the tears of an immense despair
Burn, and my feet go wildly everywhere
Lacking her hand this many a heavy moon.
I dream our hands touch; but alas, she lies
Under much earth, or else through heaven stares
Upon my heart, but not upon mine eyes:

WHEREIN LAURA'S EYES ENSHRINE THE MAXIMS OF PERFECTION

What woman longs for that illustrious fame
Jewelled with courage, mind and courtesy?
Let her on those bright eyes fix hers and see
My lovely foe, whom men my friend misname.
There let her learn with love of God to flame,
With honour glow, how native grace can be
More golden, and by what proud certainty
To touch the heaven that awaits her with acclaim.
The liquid converse that no pen may capture
Is there; the splendid silence and the pure
Act that defies the poet's purest rapture;

WHEREIN HE PLEADS WITH LOVE, THE CAUSE OF HIS OFFENDING, TO INTERCEDE FOR HIS PARDON

O Love, I err and I confess my error,
As one who writhes in fire, whose inner fire
Feeds and augments his grief, while on that pyre
Reason is martyred and recants in terror.
I fought my passion (it grew stronger, dearer)
So that I never might with dark desire
Affront her calm sweet face: I tried; I tire:
The curb slips, the sick soul shouts bolder, clearer.
Wherefore, if at an unaccustomed height
My soul shoot, thine the act, who can so prod,

WHEREIN HIS LOVE GREW LIKE THE LAUREL

Love, forcing wide my heart with his great hand,
Planted therein, as in its proper seat,
A laurel whose bright emerald could compete
With the most brilliant jewels of the land:
Furrowed by pen, by the heart's hunger fanned,
Cooled by the soft rain that fell salt and sweet,
It grew in grace and poured such fragrant heat
As no Arabian rivals could withstand.
Renown, proud honour, virtue, elegance,
Purest perfection in celestial form —
The fruit sprang out of such rare sustenance.

CONFESSION

If faith most faithful, heart to guile unknown;
If Love's delicious languors, chastened thought;
If passion by the purer passions taught;
If labyrinthine wanderings, cold, alone;
If every pang upon the forehead flown
Like fire or faltered out in tones distraught
As shame or terror on my gray cheek wrought
Vermillion ravage with Love's blushes blown;
If than myself to hold one dearer far;
If still to weep, still burst the soul with sighs
Fostered in fever, fanned by Love's long war;

WHEREIN, THOUGH LOVE'S DEVOTED SERVANT THESE TWENTY YEARS, HIS SOLE WAGE IS TEARS

Felicitous in dreams, to brood content,
To grasp at shadows, chase the summer gust,
Through shoreless fathomless leagues of water thrust,
To build on sand, write on the windy tent
Of air, gaze at the sun till these eyes, spent
And broken by his splendour, drop to dust,
To drive down some soft slope with empty lust
The storm-hooved stag with cattle slow and bent;
Sightless and faint, begging an end to all,
Which I seek day and night with heart on fire,

WHEREIN HE EXPLAINS HIS LOVE-STRICKEN STATE, RECALLING THE YEAR, DAY, HOUR OF ITS ORIGIN

Desire presses, Love leads and presides;
Pleasure persuades and ancient habits hold;
Hope cheats and charms with flatteries as old,
And with her bright touch my heart's anguish chides:
It takes her hand, in her my heart confides,
Trusts to its blind and treacherous guide (Ah, cold
And cruel is Love!): the sense grows overbold:
On each wild wish a wilder passion rides!
Virtue and grace, beauty and honour — these

QUITTING VAUCLUSE, HIS SOUL STAYS BEHIND WITH LAURA

Those cherished hills which hold my spirit still
Where the heart lingers, though I tear my feet
Fiercely away, confront my dull retreat,
While I bear Love's dark burden by Love's will.
I marvel often that I can fulfil
The sweet yoke's duties which despair would cheat
In vain, that I can breathe and my pulse beat:
The more I run, the closer looms my ill.
And as the stag, by the dark arrow stricken,
The venomed iron rankling in his flank,
Flies the more swiftly as the red drops thicken,