FROM PETRARCH.
PART I. SONNET LIX.
I am so weary with the burden old
Of foregone faults, and power of custom base,
That much I fear to perish from the ways,
And fall into my enemy’s grim fold.
True, a high friend, to free me, not with gold,
Came, of ineffable and utmost grace—
Then straightway vanished from before my face,
So that in vain I strive him to behold.
But his voice yet comes echoing below:
O ye that labour, the way open lies!
Come unto me lest some one shut the gate!
—What heavenly grace—what love will—or what fate—
The pinions of a dove on me bestow
That I may rest, and from the earth arise?
PART II. SONNET LXXV.
The elect angels and the souls in bliss,
The citizens of heaven, when, that first day,
My lady passed from me and went their way,
Of marvel and pity full, did round her press.
“What light is this, and what new loveliness?”
They said among them; “for such sweet display
Did never mount, that from the earth did stray
To this high dwelling, all this age, we guess!”[1]
She, well content her lodging chang’d to find,
Shows perfect, by her peers most perfect placed;
And now and then half turning looks behind
To see if I walk in the way she traced:
Hence I lift heavenward all my heart and mind
Because I hear her pray me to make haste.
[Footnote 1: Pure English of Petrarch’s time.]
MILTON’S ITALIAN POEMS.
The Italian scholar will understand that the retention of the feminine
rimes in translation from this language is an impossibility.
I.
O Lady fair, whose honoured name doth grace
Green vale and noble ford of Rheno’s stream—
Of all worth void the man I surely deem
Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace,
When softly self-revealed to time and space
By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem,
And fair gifts that Love’s bow and arrows seem—
But are the flowers that crown thy perfect race.
When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,—
A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard—
The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep
Who knows himself unworthy thy regard!
Grace from above alone him help can bring
That Passion in his heart strike not too deep.
II.
As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare,
Useth to go the little shepherd maid,
Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displayed,
Ill thriving in unwonted soil and air
Far from its native springtime’s genial care;
So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed
In a strange speech to wake new flower and blade,
While I of thee, proud yet so debonair,
Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost—
Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain.
Love willed it so, and I, at others’ cost,
Already knew Love never willed in vain:
Would my heart slow and bosom hard were found
To him who plants from heaven so fair a ground!
III.
CANZONE.
Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask,
With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why,
Why dost thou with an unknown language cope,
Love-riming? Whence thy courage for the task?
Tell us—so never frustrate be thy hope,
And the best thought still to thy thinking fly!
Thus me they mock: Thee other streams, they cry,
Thee other shores, another sea demands
Upon whose verdant strands
Are budding, even this moment, for thy hair
Immortal guerdon, bays that will not die:
An over-burden on thy back why bear?—
Song, I will tell thee; thou for me reply:
My lady saith—and her word is my heart—
This is Love’s mother-tongue, and fits his part.
IV.
Diodati—and I muse to tell the tale—
This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise
And make a laughter of his snares, unwise,
Am fallen—where honest feet will sometimes fail.
Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil,
Dazzle me thus; but, in a new-world guise,
A foreign Fair my heart beatifies—
With mien where high-souled modesty I hail;
Eyes softly splendent with a darkness dear;
A speech that more than one tongue vassal hath;
A voice that in the middle hemisphere
Might make the tired moon wander from her path;
While from her eyes such gracious flashes shoot
That stopping hard my ears were little boot.