I mean hereby, that mighty power in part,
Which plants and strengthens in us the deep root,
From which all fruits of love for him are grown."
THEOLOGICAL SONNETS.
In the following sonnet, which is one of several dictated by the same mood of feeling, the more subjective tone of her thought affords us an autobiographical glimpse of her state of mind on religious subjects. We find, that the new tenets which she had imbibed had failed to give her peace of mind. That comfortable security, and undoubting satisfied tranquillity, procured for the mass of her orthodox contemporaries, by the due performance of their fasts, vigils, penitences, &c., was not attained for Vittoria by a creed, which required her, as she here tells us, to stifle the suggestions of her reason.
"Se con l'armi celesti avess'io vinto
Me stessa, i sensi, e la ragione umana,
Andrei con altro spirto alta e lontana
Dal mondo, e dal suo onor falso dipinto.
Sull'ali della fede il pensier cinto
Di speme, omai non più caduca e vana,
Sarebbe fuor di questa valle insana
Da verace virtute alzato e spinto.
Ben ho già, fermo l'occhio al miglior fine
Dei nostro corso; ma non volo ancora
Per lo destro sentier salda e leggiera.
Veggio i segni del sol, scorgo l'aurora;
Ma per li sacri giri alle divine
Stanze non entro in quella luce vera."
Englished as follows:—
"Had I with heavenly arms 'gainst self and sense
And human reason waged successful war,
Then with a different spirit soaring far
I'd fly the world's vain glory and pretence.