No More Learning

NOTT.


Me Love has placed as mark before the dart,
As to the sun the snow, as wax to fire,
As clouds to wind: Lady, e'en now I tire,
Craving the mercy which never warms thy heart.
From those bright eyes was aim'd the mortal blow,
'Gainst which nor time nor place avail'd me aught;
From thee alone--nor let it strange be thought--
The sun, the fire, the wind whence I am so.
The darts are thoughts of thee, thy face the sun,
The fire my passion; such the weapons be
With which at will Love dazzles yet destroys.
Thy fragrant breath and angel voice--which won
My heart that from its thrall shall ne'er be free--
The wind which vapour-like my frail life flies.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET CIV.

_Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra. _

LOVE'S INCONSISTENCY.


I fynde no peace and all my warre is done,
I feare and hope, I bourne and freese lyke yse;
I flye above the wynde, yet cannot ryse;
And nought I have, yet all the worlde I season,
That looseth, nor lacketh, holdes me in pryson,
And holdes me not, yet can I escape no wyse.
Nor lets me leeve, nor die at my devyce,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eye I see, and without tongue I playne;
I desyre to perishe, yet aske I health;
I love another, and yet I hate my self;
I feede in sorrow and laughe in all my payne,
Lykewyse pleaseth me both death and lyf,
And my delight is cawser of my greif.

WYATT. [S]

[Footnote S: Harrington's Nugae Antiquae. ]


Warfare I cannot wage, yet know not peace;
I fear, I hope, I burn, I freeze again;
Mount to the skies, then bow to earth my face;
Grasp the whole world, yet nothing can obtain.
His prisoner Love nor frees, nor will detain;
In toils he holds me not, nor will release;
He slays me not, nor yet will he unchain;
Nor joy allows, nor lets my sorrow cease.
Sightless I see my fair; though mute, I mourn;
I scorn existence, and yet court its stay;
Detest myself, and for another burn;
By grief I'm nurtured; and, though tearful, gay;
Death I despise, and life alike I hate:
Such, lady, dost thou make my wayward state!

NOTT.




CANZONE XVIII.

_Qual piu diversa e nova. _

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.


Whate'er most wild and new
Was ever found in any foreign land,
If viewed and valued true,
Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.
Whence the bright day breaks through,
Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,
Who voluntary dies,
To live again regenerate and entire:
So ever my desire,
Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest
Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,
There melts and is undone,
And sinking to its first state of unrest,
So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,
And, Phoenix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms.

Where Indian billows sweep,
A wondrous stone there is, before whose strength
Stout navies, weak to keep
Their binding iron, sink engulf'd at length:
So prove I, in this deep
Of bitter grief, whom, with her own hard pride,
That fair rock knew to guide
Where now my life in wreck and ruin drives:
Thus too the soul deprives,
By theft, my heart, which once so stonelike was,
It kept my senses whole, now far dispersed:
For mine, O fate accurst!
A rock that lifeblood and not iron draws,
Whom still i' the flesh a magnet living, sweet,
Drags to the fatal shore a certain doom to meet.

Neath the far Ethiop skies
A beast is found, most mild and meek of air,
Which seems, yet in her eyes
Danger and dool and death she still does bear:
Much needs he to be wise
To look on hers whoever turns his mien:
Although her eyes unseen,
All else securely may be viewed at will
But I to mine own ill
Run ever in rash grief, though well I know
My sufferings past and future, still my mind
Its eager, deaf and blind
Desire o'ermasters and unhinges so,
That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face,
Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death I trace.

In the rich South there flows
A fountain from the sun its name that wins,
This marvel still that shows,
Boiling at night, but chill when day begins;
Cold, yet more cold it grows
As the sun's mounting car we nearer see:
So happens it with me
(Who am, alas! of tears the source and seat),
When the bright light and sweet,
My only sun retires, and lone and drear
My eyes are left, in night's obscurest reign,
I burn, but if again
The gold rays of the living sun appear,
My slow blood stiffens, instantaneous, strange;
Within me and without I feel the frozen change!

Another fount of fame
Springs in Epirus, which, as bards have told,
Kindles the lurking flame,
And the live quenches, while itself is cold.
My soul, that, uncontroll'd,
And scathless from love's fire till now had pass'd,
Carelessly left at last
Near the cold fair for whom I ceaseless sigh,
Was kindled instantly:
Like martyrdom, ne'er known by day or night,
A heart of marble had to mercy shamed.
Which first her charms inflamed
Her fair and frozen virtue quenched the light;
That thus she crushed and kindled my heart's fire,
Well know I who have felt in long and useless ire.