"
She from her beauteous breast
A branch of laurel and of palm displays,
And, answering, thus she says.
She from her beauteous breast
A branch of laurel and of palm displays,
And, answering, thus she says.
Petrarch
_Non puo far morte il dolce viso amaro. _
SINCE HER DEATH HE HAS CEASED TO LIVE.
Death cannot make that beauteous face less fair,
But that sweet face may lend to death a grace;
My spirit's guide! from her each good I trace;
Who learns to die, may seek his lesson there.
That holy one! who not his blood would spare,
But did the dark Tartarean bolts unbrace;
He, too, doth from my soul death's terrors chase:
Then welcome, death! thy impress I would wear.
And linger not! 'tis time that I had fled;
Alas! my stay hath little here avail'd,
Since she, my Laura blest, resign'd her breath:
Life's spring in me hath since that hour lain dead,
In her I lived, my life in hers exhaled,
The hour she died I felt within me death!
WOLLASTON.
CANZONE VI.
_Quando il suave mio fido conforto. _
SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO
CONSOLE HIM.
When she, the faithful soother of my pain,
This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,
Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,
With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;
O'ercome by tenderness, and terror vain,
I cry, "Whence comest thou, O spirit blest?
"
She from her beauteous breast
A branch of laurel and of palm displays,
And, answering, thus she says.
"From th' empyrean seat of holy love
Alone thy sorrows to console I move. "
In actions, and in words, in humble guise
I speak my thanks, and ask, "How may it be
That thou shouldst know my wretched state? " and she
"Thy floods of tears perpetual, and thy sighs
Breathed forth unceasing, to high heaven arise.
And there disturb thy blissful state serene;
So grievous hath it been,
That freed from this poor being, I at last
To a better life have pass'd,
Which should have joy'd thee hadst thou loved as well
As thy sad brow, and sadder numbers tell. "
"Oh! not thy ills, I but deplore my own,
In darkness, and in grief remaining here,
Certain that thou hast reach'd the highest sphere,
As of a thing that man hath seen and known.
Would God and Nature to the world have shown
Such virtue in a young and gentle breast,
Were not eternal rest
The appointed guerdon of a life so fair?
Thou! of the spirits rare,
Who, from a course unspotted, pure and high,
Are suddenly translated to the sky.
"But I! how can I cease to weep? forlorn,
Without thee nothing, wretched, desolate!
Oh, in the cradle had I met my fate,
Or at the breast! and not to love been born! "
And she: "Why by consuming grief thus worn?
