No More Learning

XV
When shining arms at distance she perceives,
Or any thing that speaks a cavalier,
'Tis her desired Rogero, she believes;
And her fair eyes and brows are seen to clear.
If footman, or unarmed, the maid conceives,
It is a courier from the youthful peer;
And, though fallacious every hope she feeds,
Another and another aye succeeds.

XVI
And then she arms, and will the warrior meet;
And from the hill descends into the plain:
She finds him not, and to Montalban's seat
Hopes he by other road his way has ta'en.
In the design, wherewith she moved her feet
From thence, she to her fort returns in vain;
Nor finds him here nor there; meanwhile expired
The period whose approach she so desired.

XVII
-- The period so prefixt o'erpast by one,
By two, three, six, by eight, by twenty days --
She seeing not her spouse, and tidings none
Receiving of the youth, laments 'gan raise,
Which had from snake-haired Furies pity won,
In those dark realms that Rhadamanthus sways.
She smote her eyes divine, and bosoms fair;
She rent the tresses of her golden hair.

XVIII
"Can it be true? " -- (she cried) -- "Shall I be fain
To follow one, that strives to hide and fly?
Esteem a man that has me in disdain?
Pray him that never hears my suppliant cry?
Suffer who hates me o'er my heart to reign?
One that his lofty virtues holds so high,
'Twere need some heaven-born goddess should descend
From realms above, his stubborn heart to bend?

XIX
"Proud youth! he knows my worship and my love,
Nor me will have for lover or for slave.
The cruel stripling knows what pangs I prove,
Yet will not aid me till I am in my grave.
Nor let me tell my sorrows, lest they move
Him his perverse and evil will to wave;
Shunning me like malignant asp, that fears
To change his mood, if he the charmer hears.

XX
"Ah! Love, arrest this wight who runs so free,
Outstripping my slow feet, or me install
In the condition whence thou tookest me,
Such as I was, ere thine or other's thrall.
-- Alas! how vain the hope! that thou shouldst be
Ever to pity moved by suppliant call,
Who sport, yea feed and live, in streams that rise
From the distracted lover's brimming eyes.

XXI
"But, woe is me, alas! and, what can I
Save my irrational desire lament?
Which makes me soar a pitch so passing high,
I reach a region, where my plumes are brent;
Then, unsustained, fall headlong from the sky;
Nor ends my woe; on other flight intent,
Again I imp my wings, again I soar;
To flame and fall, tormented evermore.

XXII
"Yea; rather of myself should I complain,
Than the desire, to which I bared my breast
Whereby was Reason hunted from her reign,
And all my powers by stronger force opprest.
Thus borne from bad to worse, without a rein,
I cannot the unbridled beast arrest;
Who makes me see I to destruction haste,
That I more bitterness in death may taste.

XXIII
"Yet, ah! why blame myself? Wherein have I
Ever offended, save in loving thee?
What wonder was it then that suddenly
A woman's feeble sense opprest should be?
Why fence and guard myself, lest bearing high,
Wise words, and beauty rare should pleasure me?