Love! I have dressed myself in robes of white,
Shaped by thy scissors; as I put them on,
I find them loose and easy, but anon
They grow uneasy, cumbersome, and tight.
After consenting with a child's delight
To wear them, such repentance has possessed
My soul, that oft, by pure impatience pressed,
I try to tear them off in thy despite.
But who can free himself from such a suit,
When his thwart nature has become thereto
Conformed? if of my reason any part
Remains unparalyzed, it has not heart
To abet my cause, for in this stern dispute
Of circumstance, it knows it would not do.
XXV. TO BOSCÁN.
Boscán, you are now revenged upon my play
Of past severe unkindness, who reproved
The tenderness of that soft heart which loved
With such excessive warmth; now, not a day
Passes, but for the things I used to say
With so much rudeness, I myself chastise;
Still, times there are when I at heart despise,
And blush for the abasement I betray.
Know that, full grown, and armed against desire,
With my eyes open I have vailed my plume
To the blind boy you know,—but soft, my lute,
Never, oh never did man's heart consume
In so divine and beautiful a fire;
If you her name solicit, I am mute.
XXVI.
Wild doubts, that floating in my brain delight
To war with my fond feelings, tempesting
In your suspicious flight with angry wing
My melancholy bosom, day and night!
Now is my force of mind extinguished quite,
And all resistance, vain is my lamenting,—
Vanquished, I yield myself at length, repenting,—
E'er to have striven in such a hopeless fight.
Bear me to that lone tower whose gate alarms
The quick,—my death I saw not graven there,
Blindness has sealed my eyes till now; my arms
I cast aside; since their misfortunes bar
Help from the unhappy—the proud pomp prepare,
And hang my spoils on your triumphal car!