So strongly are the cruel winds combined
My ruin to concert, that they disperse
My tender fancies soon as framed, and worse,
Leave all my keen anxieties behind,
That like tenacious ivies darkly twined
Round some old ruin, fix their vigorous root
Deep in my heart, and their wild branches shoot
O'er all the fond affections of my mind.
Yet on the other hand I murmur not,
Now that the winds in their tempestuous strife
Have stolen my bliss, that thus my sorrows stay;
I rather gather comfort from the thought;
For in the process of so hard a life,
They lessen the long toil and weary way.
XX. TO D. ALONSO DE AVALO, MARQUIS DEL VASTO.
Illustrious Marquis, on whom Heaven showers down
All the bliss this world knows! if to the light
Of thy resplendent valour—to the height
Whereto the voice of thy sublime renown
Calls me, I climb, as to the flaming crown
Of some stupendous mountain, thou shalt be
Eternal, peerless, sole, and I through thee
Scornful of winged Time's destructive frown.
All that we wish from heaven, and gain on earth,
Are in thy high perfections met; in short,
Thou art the unique wonder, at whose birth
Her world of bright conceptions Nature scanned,
Singled the best, and with Dædalian hand,
Thrice livelier than her cast the statue wrought.
XXI.
With keen desire to see what the fine swell
Of thy white bosom in its core keeps shrined,
If the interior graces of the mind
Its outward shape and loveliness excel,
I have my sight fixed on it; but the spell
Of its voluptuous beauty holds mine eyes
In such enchantment, that their curious spies
Pass not to mark the spirit in its cell,
And thus stay weeping at the portal, made
To grieve me by that hiding hand which even
Holds its own bosom's beauty unforgiven;
So I behold my hope to death betrayed,
And love's sharp lances, rarely known to fail,
Serve not to pierce beyond its muslin mail.