’Tis bitter for the spirit that’s lived in Heaven,
Quickly to be reft of what composed its bliss;
’Tis bitter, that our bliss should wing the levin,
And add a torture to the incisor knife;
And, after earth was shaped to Paradise,
Catching the colour of most loveable eyes,
’Tis sad, that all should darken in a trice,
And but remind us of the joy that flies;
Wants but a motion, and all sights that woo
The bewitched eyesight of the doting world,
Shall catch some stain, and shade to black their hue,
Their pride exposed to gaze, their void unfurled:
Yet who’d exist, and bind nought to his heart?
Strong be that soul that dares to live apart.
LXXIX.
But what have I to do with prating griefs,
That mar the sanctity on Beauty’s brow?
I have in thee a thousand full reliefs;
Why wound the seeds of joy with torture’s plough?
Even now, thy youthful years, in wisdom fledg’d,
Wave thousand-coloured plumes o’er elder minds;
Whiles thou, to only Love and Beauty pledged,
Unsought, uncared for, feel’st the applausive winds:
Envy thou dost take captive, and transform
To the good angel of magnanimous praise;
And men are only jealous, and grow warm,
Matching those wordy altars which they raise:
That men adore the wonder of thy worth,
But shames my love, whose utmost praise is dearth.
LXXX.
In seeking pleasure, I have tasted woe;
And drunk of every cup, to test its worth:
Ill sediments must, in such seeking, flow
And mingle with the thoughts that gave them birth:
Who drinks experience, drinks, at once, disdain;
From weariness, Excitement gathers force,
Then swerves not for slight barriers, nor draws rein,
Till all his passion’s wreak’d upon the course:
The course is finished; hollow is the cup;
Nor may regret point at the looked for dregs:
Who sits the banquet out, at last, must sup
From off satiety’s unfurnished pegs.
’Tis something known, that there is nought to gain;
Each different science prints his proper strain.
LXXXI.
How void of meaning seems the barren earth!
How dwindles all its pride, to infants’ toys!
For me, all life is quickened into birth,
Only by the love, that turns my grief to joys:
Sullen, I look out upon the bleak dim morn,
And curse the cold, the climate, and the cloud:
I match those frowns with thy imagined scorn;
Sudden, the sun illumes the misty shroud;
The thought, that’s full of thee, discerns no grief,
But builds a summer palace in the air;
It sifts compounded woes, torturing their sheaf,
That bitter thoughts may hide, ’mid thoughts more fair;
The mind returns from thee, winged with delight;
Unsated, it soon meditates new flight.