There down the margins I was wont to note
Each torment grim that crushed me like a vice:
The paste my hurrying thoughts could hardly float.
To make an O, I dipped the splinter thrice
In that thick mud; worse woe could scarcely grind
Spirits in hell debarred from Paradise.
Seeing I’m not the first by fraud confined,
This I’ll omit; and once more seek the cell
Wherein I rack for rage both heart and mind.
I praise it more than other tongues will tell;
And, for advice to such as do not know,
Swear that without it none can labour well.
Yet oh! for one like Him I learned but now,
Who’d cry to me as by Bethesda’s shore:
Take thy clothes, Benvenuto, rise and go!
Credo I’d sing, Salve reginas pour
And Paternosters; alms I’d then bestow
Morn after morn on blind folk, lame, and poor.
Ah me! how many a time my cheek must grow
Blanched by those lilies! Shall I then forswear
Florence and France through them for evermore? [4]
If to the hospital I come, and fair
Find the Annunziata limned. I’ll fly:
Else shall I show myself a brute beast there. [5]
These words flout not Her worshipped sanctity,
Nor those Her lilies, glorious, holy, pure,
The which illumine earth and heaven high!
But for I find at every coign obscure
Base lilies which spread hooks where flowers should blow
Needs must I fear lest these to ruin lure. [6]