XXXII. TO MARIO GALEOTA.
WRITTEN FROM GOLETTA.
My friend, ungrateful Love, who well must know
With what pure constancy my faith I keep,
Exerting his base pride, which is to heap
Upon his dearest friend his heaviest woe,—
Fearing that if I write, and publish so
His deeds, his grandeur I abate, his force
Not equalling his spite, has had recourse
To the fierce intervention of my foe;
And in the noble part with which I wield
The sword, and that which gives intelligence
Of our conceptions, I have wounded been;
But I will take good care that the offence
Shall cost the offender dear, now I am healed,
Offended, free, and for repayment keen.
XXXIII.
My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I stray
Already in my grief without a guide;
We both must go, howe'er dissatisfied,
With hasty step in an unwished-for way.
I, but companioned by the dark array
Of images that frenzy does create,
And that, as forced along by grief to state
A thousand things it never wished to say.
The law to me is most severe—it knows
My innocence, yet makes not mine alone,
But others' faults, my torturers! why should I
Smart for the madness of my tongue, when woes
Beyond endurance lift the lash on high,
And Reason trembles on her tottering throne?