[72]
12 [XXIX] This sonnet may safely be set down as belonging to the later time. The sentiment of unhappy attachment, impossible desire, wistful loneliness, breathes through the verse. The piece contains two mystical but grand lines. Whoever has hoped for an elevation not given to mortals has wasted his thought in the endeavor to penetrate the recesses of deity, as seed is lost on the stony ground, and words spent in the limitless air.
13 [XXX] This gentle and tender poem, of the earlier period, somewhat similar in sentiment to No. 5 [XIX], and obviously from the heart, is penetrated by the same feeling as that discernible in Nos. 8 and 9 [XXIV and XXV]. Varchi, with his characteristic want of perception, chose to fancy that it might be addressed to a man, like the following, said to be composed for Tommaso Cavalieri.
[XXXI]
A CHE PIÙ DEBB’IO MAI L’INTENSA VOGLIA
What right have I to give my passion vent
In bitter plaint and words of sighing breath,
If Heaven, soon or late, apparelleth
Each living soul in mantle of lament?
Why ere his time, invoke the feet of Death,