Love gives us wisdom, faith which will not swerve,
A noble mind and willingness to serve.
How rare a thing on earth in perfect ease!
To Thee, oh Virgin! Mother of all love,
I dedicate this song; if thou deniest
Me not, thou shall be my "sweet bliss." With Christ
I pray Thee, intercede for me above.
In this song, then, he calls Mary "his sweet bliss" (bel deport), a name which he had previously given to a certain countess with whom he had been in love. In the next poem, in which earthly love and love of the Madonna are again brought into juxta-position, he commends himself "to the Virgin, the sublime mother of love, on whom all my happiness depends." One of his poems which begins in quite an earthly strain, ends thus:
I feel no jealousy; for he whose soul
Is filled with yearning for his heavenly love,