My gladness keepeth me concealed from thee,
Which rayeth round about me, and doth hide me
Like as a creature swathed in its own silk.
Much didst thou love me, and thou hadst good reason;
For had I been below, I should have shown thee
Somewhat beyond the foliage of my love.
That left-hand margin, which doth bathe itself
In Rhone, when it is mingled with the Sorgue,
Me for its lord awaited in due time,
And that horn of Ausonia, which is towned
With Bari, with Gaeta and Catona,
Whence Tronto and Verde in the sea disgorge.
Already flashed upon my brow the crown
Of that dominion which the Danube waters
After the German borders it abandons;
And beautiful Trinacria, that is murky
’Twixt Pachino and Peloro, (on the gulf
Which greatest scath from Eurus doth receive,)
Not through Typhoeus, but through nascent sulphur,
Would have awaited her own monarchs still,
Through me from Charles descended and from Rudolph,
If evil lordship, that exasperates ever
The subject populations, had not moved
Palermo to the outcry of ‘Death! death!’
And if my brother could but this foresee,
The greedy poverty of Catalonia
Straight would he flee, that it might not molest him;
For verily ’tis needful to provide,
Through him or other, so that on his bark
Already freighted no more freight be placed.