If ’tis fate below,
And Heaven will have it so,
That Love must close these dying eyes in tears,
May my poor dust be laid
In middle of your shade,
While my soul, naked, mounts to its own spheres
20 The thought would calm my fears,
When taking, out of breath,
The doubtful step of death;
For never could my spirit find
A stiller port after the stormy wind;
Nor in more calm, abstracted bourne,
Slip from my travail’d flesh, and from my bones outworn.
Perhaps, some future hour,
To her acustom’d bower
Might come the untamed, and yet the gentle she;
30 And where she saw me first,
Might turn with eyes athirst
And kinder joy to look again for me;
Then, oh! The charity
Seeing amidst the stones
The earth that held my bones,
A sigh for very love at last
Might ask of Heaven to pardon me the past;
And Heaven itself could not say nay,
As with her gentle veil she wiped the tears away.
40 How well I call to mind
When from those boughs the wind
Shook down upon her bosom flower on flower;
And there she sat, meek-eyed,
In midst of all that pride,
Sprinkled and blushing through an amorous shower
Some to her hair paid dower,
And seem’d to dress the curls,
Queenlike, with gold and pearls;
Some, snowing on her drapery stopp’d,
50 Some on the earth, some on the water dropp’d;
While others, fluttering from above,
Seem’d wheeling round in pomp, and saying, ‘Here reigns Love.’
How often then I said,
Inward, and fill’d with dread,
‘Doubtless this creature came from Paradise!’
For at her look the while,
Her voice, and her sweet smile,
And heavenly air, truth parted from my eyes;
So that, with long-drawn sighs,
60 I said, as far from men,
‘How came I here, and when?’
I had forgotten; and alas!
Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was;
And from that time till this, I bear
Such love for this green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere.
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS (1793–1835)
Hemans was a prolific poetess, admired by Shelley, Byron and Wordsworth. She translated only two sonnets, P248 and P279. Text from The Complete Poems of Felicia Hemans (1844).
P248: Chi vuol veder quantunque pò Natura
Thou that wouldst mark, in form of human birth,
All heaven and nature’s perfect skill combined,
Come gaze on her, the day-star of the earth,
Dazzling not me alone, but all mankind:
And haste! for death, who spares the guilty long,
First calls the brightest and the best away;
And to her home, amidst the cherub-throng
The angelic mortal flies, and will not stay!
Haste! and each outward charm, each mental grace,
10 In one consummate form thine eye shall trace,
Model of loveliness, for earth too fair!
Then thou shalt own, how faint my votive lays,
My spirit dazzled by perfection’s blaze –
But if thou still delay for long regret prepare.
P279: Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde
If to the sighing breeze of summer-hours
Bend the green leaves; if mourns a plaintive bird
Or from some fount’s cool margin, fringed with flowers,
The soothing murmur of the wave is heard;
Her, whom the heavens reveal, the earth denies,
I see and hear: though dwelling far above,
Her spirit, still responsive to my sighs,
Visits the lone retreat of pensive love.
‘Why thus in grief consume each fruitless day,
10 (Her gentle accents thus divinely say,)
‘While from thine eyes the tear unceasing flows.
Weep not for me, who, hastening on my flight,
Died, to be deathless; and on heavenly light
Whose eyes but opened, when they seemed to close!’
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON (1823–1911)
Minister, social and political radical, abolitionist, commander of a Black regiment in the American Civil War, and early feminist, Higginson wrote frequently for the Atlantic Monthly. In response to one of his articles urging women to write, Emily Dickinson sent him four of her poems. He became her mentor and her first publisher. He wrote more than thirty books, among which is his stylish Fifteen Sonnets of Petrarch (1903), from which sonnet 8 is selected.
P294: Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva
She ruled in beauty o’er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble house,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
’T is I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room
Might rend the rocks with pity, for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
They weep within my heart; no ears they find
10 Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are;
Assuredly desire is mad and blind;
Assuredly its hope but ends in death.
CHARLES BAGOT CAYLEY (1823–83)
Cayley, rejected suitor of Christina Rossetti, translated Homer, Aeschylus and Dante, and was the first man to translate all of Petrarch himself, beating Major Macgregor by doing Ρ105. Text from The Sonnets and Stanzas of Petrarch (1879).
P119: Una donna più bella assai che ’l sole
Ode 12: Glory and Virtue
I
A lady brighter far than is the sun,
And fairer, and of equal age thereto,
Had drawn me with her crew,
By her famed beauties, in my youth’s raw day.
She, ’mid all thoughts, and words, and acts begun
(Because of things like her the world had few),
Met constantly my view,
With lofty, graceful air in many a way.
She did alone my altered nature sway,
10 Since closely first I dared her eyes to scan;
For her love I began
Betimes, in faith, a stubborn enterprise.
Hence, if I reach the port I’ve coveted,
From her I hope a prize
Of lasting life, when some will think me dead.
II
This lady-love for years my steps controlled
While yet with longings of my youth I burned;
And afterwards I learned
That but to try me thus she meant in sooth.
20 Nought showed she but a shadow, garment’s fold,
Or veil oft; but aloof her face was turned;
Nor yet had I discerned,
Alack! how little I saw; but through my youth
I passed content, and loved my past in truth.
But when in front I’d penetrated more,
Beyond her wont of yore
She raised her veil, and so much of her face
Revealed, that to my heart flew cold alarms,
Which still possess the place,
30 And will, until I’ve held her in my arms.
III
Yet heart I lost not quite by fear or cold,
But roused its vigour, and pressed near her feet,
So that a sweet more sweet
To draw forth from her eyes I migh
t attain:
But, when the veil, that foiled my eyes, was rolled
Aside, she said, ‘My loveliness complete
Thou seest; and now entreat,
My friend, for what thy youth might fitly gain.’
‘Lady,’ said I, ‘my love doth long remain
40 Fast fixed on you – the love I now feel hot;
Hence, in my present lot,
I cannot choose aught else, or aught forswear.’
She answered with so admirably strung
A voice, and such an air,
That thereto endless hope and fear have clung.
IV
‘Few have been found on earth, in all its host,
That, having heard discourse about my parts,
Have not thence felt their hearts
Touched with a spark, though it might last not long.
50 But mine antagonist, by whom is crossed
All good, soon quells it; virtue thus departs;
And up a new lord starts,
Who calleth to an easier life the throng.
New Love such things, which to thy mind belong,
Hath told me truly, that I thence descry,
Thy aspirations high
Will fit for paths of honour render thee.
Now, since thou art my friend in rarest guise,
To prove my words, thou’lt see
60 A lady, that will happier make thine eyes.’
V
I would have said, ‘Impossible’s the event;’
She said, ‘Now somewhat lift thy eyes, and view,
In more retired purlieu,
A lady, that was ne’er by many seen.’
That way forthwith my bashful brows I bent,
And in me felt a heat increased and new;
which thing to mirth she drew,
And said, ‘I see well what thy case hath been;
For as the sun, with his more powerful sheen,
70 Suddenly quencheth every other star,
So seems my face now far
Less lovely, by that grander light subdued.
Yet from my crew thou never shalt be torn,
Since from the selfsame brood
First she, then I, at one same birth were born.’
VI
Now by this time the bond of shame was rent,
Which round my tongue so closely bounden lay,
Since I was mocked, I say,
And her observance when I first descried.
80 I answered, ‘If the truth you represent,
Oh blessed be the hour, blessed be the day,
Which decked the world’s array
With you, and blessed all the time I hied
To view you; for if aught I swerved aside
This grieves me more than I could demonstrate.
If then about your state
I could deserve more knowledge, this I crave.’
Full thoughtfully she answered, and so fast
Fixed the sweet look she gave,
90 That in my heart her face and words were cast.
VII
‘As pleased the Eternal Sire from whom we sprung,
We both were born for endless permanence.
Alack, what gain we thence?
’Twere better, if to us the fault were owed!
Beloved and beautiful, winsome and young
We’ve been, but have so lost our confidence,
That now my sister hence
Hath raised the wing, to seek her first abode.
I am a shadow merely; now I’ve showed
100 Whate’er thou couldst be taught by speedy word.’
Then, when her feet she’d stirred,
She said, ‘Now fear not lest afar I stand.’
A garland of green laurel then she knit,
And took with either hand,
And close about my temples fastened it.
P325: Tacer non posso, e temo non adopre
Ode 25
I
I cannot hold my peace, but am afraid
My tongue my heart’s intention may belie –
That she, who from on high
Is hearkening, might in honour more abound.
But who, if Love instruct him not, can vie
By mortal words with beauties of a grade
Divine, and overlaid
With self-collected lowliness profound?
This gracious soul in the sweet prison’s bound
10 Whence now ’tis freed, had had not long to bide,
When I discerned her; and because the time
Was in the May and prime
Of the year’s course and mine, I forthwith hied
To gather flowers in the meadows nigh,
Hoping, thus decked, that I might please her eye.
II
Lo alabaster walls, a roof of gold,
Windows of sapphire, gate of ivory,
From which my earliest sigh
Reached, and the latest hath to reach my heart!
20 From these appeared Love’s messengers to fly,
With laurel crowned, and each of them to hold
(Methinks, I yet behold
And tremble at their host) a fiery dart.
A stately throne was in the midmost part,
Compact of native diamond unwrought,
Where the bright lady sate in solitude;
And full before her stood
A crystal column, wherein every thought
Was written, and appeared so plain outside,
30 That oft it made me blithe, and oft I sighed.
III
By all those weapons keen, and bright, and hot,
And that triumphant ensign green, which field
Of battle scorns to yield
To god, or giant, or to Jove most high,
The place, wherein I’d entered, was revealed,
Where weeping still is fresh, and slackens not.
All helpless on the spot
They took me; where or how was I to fly?
But as one weeping while he goes, may spy
40 One thing, that draws his eyne and heart away,
So tow’rd a window, where she stood, for whom
I bear a captive’s doom,
And who was singly perfect in her day,
I began gazing with such eagerness,
That I forgot myself and my distress.
IV
I was on earth, my heart in heav’n was set,
In sweet obliviousness of every care.
I felt to marble there
My living shape turned, and imbued with awe.
50 A lady then, with prompt and dreadless air,
Ancient, but in complexion youthful yet,
When me so rapt she met,
As by my forehead and my brows one saw,
Said, ‘Thou shouldst hither for advice withdraw,
For powers are in me, which thy thought transcend;
And lighter than the wind, I make men glad
By moments and then sad,
And all thou see’st on earth I rule and bend.
But on yon sun fix eagle-like thy gaze,
60 Hearkening meanwhile to what my speech conveys.
V
‘The day when she was born, those planets whence
Proceed the effects most happy for thy race,
In highest, choicest place,
One tow’rd another looked with loving ray.
Venus and Jove with their aspects of grace
Possessed a fair and noble residence;
All stars that work offence
And bale, thro’ heav’n were scattered far away.
Ne’er had the sun disclosed so sweet a day;
70 The air and earth were glad, the seas at rest,
And quiet all the waters of the streams.
Amid these friendly beams
I was but by one distant cloud distressed;
Because in tears, should Pity not withdraw
The hand of
heav’n, I fear that it will thaw.
VI
‘When first to this low state she was conveyed,
Which ill deserved her, if the truth be told –
A marvel to behold
In that raw age, so hallowed and so sweet –
80 She seemed a white pearl set in finest gold;
And when she crept, or trembling footsteps laid,
Green, bright, and soft she made
Wood, water, earth, and stone; yea with conceit
The grasses freshened ’neath her palms and feet,
And her fair eyes the fields around her dressed
With flowers; and the winds and storms she stilled
With utterance unskilled,
As from a tongue that seeketh yet the breast.
So well to this deaf, eyeless world she showed
90 That now it was a heav’nly light’s abode.
VII
‘But when, new years and new perfections gained,
She entered her third age’s flowery space,
Such loveliness and grace,
I trow, did never yet the sun delight.
Such blameless gladness in her eyes found place,
So sweet a comeliness her speech maintained,
That every tongue’s refrained
From uttering what thou only know’st aright.
Her aspect is with heav’nly rays so bright,
100 That from it soon your glances must be turned;
And through those dungeon-walls, her earthly part,
Such fire has reached thy heart,
That never yet a man more sweetly burned.
But thee to live in bitterness she’ll cause,
Methinks, when on a sudden she withdraws.’
VIII
This said, she turned to guide her nimble wheel,
On which our lives are spun; thus were divined
My coming hurts in language sad and true;
For then the years were few
110 Before the lady, for whose sake I pined
To die, was seized by stern and eager Death,
Who could not rob a fairer shape of breath.
RICHARD GARNETT (1835–1906)
Garnett was Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. Two sonnets, 25 and 26, from his Dante, Petrarch, Camoens: CXXIV Sonnets (1896).
P181: Amor fra l’erbe una leggiadra rete
Love spread a dainty net in grassy glade
Woven from gold and pearl, ’neath fadeless boughs
Of laurel, shrine of my enamoured vows,
Though gloomy more than gladsome be its shade.
Bait of the sweet and bitter seed was laid
Petrarch in English Page 23
