My God, my God, how much I love my goddess,
Whose virtues rare, unto the heavens arise!
My God, my God, how much I love her eyes
One shining bright, the other full of hardness!
My God, my God, how much I love her wisdom,
Whose works may ravish heaven's richest maker!
Of whose eyes' joys if I might be partaker
Then to my soul a holy rest would come.
My God, how much I love to hear her speak!
Whose hands I kiss and ravished oft rekisseth,
When she stands wotless whom so much she blesseth.
Say then, what mind this honest love would break;
Since her perfections pure, withouten blot,
Makes her beloved of thee, she knoweth not?
THE SEVENTH DECADE
I
The first created held a joyous bower,
A flowering field, the world's sole wonderment,
High Paradise, from whence a woman's power
Enticed him to fall to endless banishment.
This on the banks of Euphrates did stand,
Till the first Mover, by his wondrous might,
Planted it in thine eyes, thy face, thy hands,
From whence the world receives his fairest light.
Thy cheeks contain choice flowers; thy eyes, two suns;
Thy hands, the fruit that no life blood can stain;
And in thy breath, that heavenly music wons,
Which, when thou speak'st, angels their voices strain.
As from the first thy sex exilèd me,
So to this next let me be called by thee!
II
Fair grace of graces, muse of muses all,
Thou Paradise, thou only heaven I know!
What influence hath bred my hateful woe,
That I from thee and them am forced to fall?
Thou falled from me, from thee I never shall,
Although my fortunes thou hast brought so low;
Yet shall my faith and service with thee go,
For live I do, on heaven and thee to call.
Banish'd all grace, no graces with me dwell;
Compelled to muse, my muses from me fly;
Excluded heaven, what can remain but hell?
Exiled from paradise, in hate I lie,
Cursing my stars; albeit I find it true,
I lost all these when I lost love and you.