She who has the bright face and the bright hair;
Because if she were absent, I being there,
My pleasure would be less than nought, I know.
Look you, I say not this to such intent
As that I there would deal in any sin: 10
I only would behold her gracious mien,
And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,
That so it should be my complete content
To see my lady joyful in her place.
OF HIS LADY’S FACE
SONNET
Her face has made my life most proud and glad;
Her face has made my life quite wearisome;
It comforts me when other troubles come,
And amid other joys it strikes me sad.
Truly I think her face can drive me mad; 5
For now I am too loud, and anon dumb.
There is no second face in Christendom
Has a like power, nor shall have, nor has had.
What man in living face has seen such eyes,
Or such a lovely bending of the head, 10
Or mouth that opens to so sweet a smile?
In speech, my heart before her faints and dies,
And into heaven seems to be spirited;
So that I count me blest a certain while.
NICCOLO DEGLI ALBIZZI
WHEN THE TROOPS WERE RETURNING FROM MILAN
PROLONGED SONNET
If you could see, fair brother, how dead beat
The fellows look who come through Rome today,
Black yellow smoke-dried visages, you’d say
They thought their haste at going all too fleet.
Their empty victual-waggons up the street 5
Over the bridge dreadfully sound and sway;
Their eyes, as hang’d men’s, turning the wrong way;
And nothing on their backs, or heads, or feet.
One sees the ribs and all the skeletons
Of their gaunt horses; and a sorry sight 10
Are the torn saddles, cramm’d with straw and stones.
They are ashamed, and march throughout the night;
Stumbling, for hunger, on their marrowbones;
Like barrels rolling, jolting, in this plight.
Their arms all gone, not even their swords are saved; 15
And each as silent as a man being shaved.
GIACOMINO PUGLIESI
OF HIS DEAD LADY
CANZONE
Death, why hast thou made life so hard to bear,
Taking my lady hence? Hast thou no whit
Of shame? The youngest flower and the most fair
Thou hast pluck’d away, and the world wanteth it.
O leaden Death, hast thou no pitying? 5
Our warm love’s very spring
Thou stopp’st, and endest what was holy and meet;
And of my gladdening
Mak’st a most woeful thing,
And in my heart dost bid the bird not sing 10
That sang so sweet.
Once the great joy and solace that I had
Was more than is with other gentlemen:
Now is my love gone hence, who made me glad.
With her that hope I lived in she hath ta’en, 15
And left me nothing but these sighs and tears,
Nothing of the old years
That come not back again,
Wherein I was so happy, being her’s.
Now to mine eyes her face no more appears, 20
Nor doth her voice make music in mine ears,
As it did then.
O God, why hast thou made my grief so deep?
Why set me in the dark to grope and pine?
Why parted me from her companionship, 25
And crush’d the hope that was a gift of thine?
To think, dear, that I never any more
Can see thee as before!
Who is it shuts thee in?
Who hides that smile for which my heart is sore, 30
And drowns those words that I am longing for,
Lady of mine?
Where is my lady, and the lovely face
She had, and the sweet motion when she walk’d?
Her chaste, mild favour - her so delicate grace - 35
Her eyes, her mouth, and the dear way she talk’d?-
Her courteous bending - her most noble air -
The soft fall of her hair?...
My lady - she who to my soul so rare
A gladness brought! 40
Now I do never see her anywhere,
And I may not, looking in her eyes, gain there
The blessing which I sought.
So if I had the realm of Hungary,
With Greece and all the Almayn even to France, 45
Or Saint Sophia’s treasure-hoard, you see
All could not give me back her countenance.
For since the day when my dear lady died
From us (with God being born and glorified)
No more pleasaunce 50
Her image bringeth, seated at my side,
But only tears. Ay me! the strength and pride
Which it brought once.
Had I my will, beloved, I would say
To God, unto whose bidding all things bow, 55
That we were still together night and day:
Yet be it done as His behests allow.
I do remember that while she remain’d
With me, she often called me her sweet friend;
But does not now, 60
Because God drew her towards Him, in the end.
Lady, that peace which none but He can send
Be thine. Even so.
FRA GUITTONE D’AREZZO
TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
SONNET
Lady of Heaven, the mother glorified
Of glory, which is Jesus, - He whose death
Us from the gates of Hell delivereth
And our first parents’ error sets aside: -
Behold this earthly Love, how his darts glide- 5
How sharpen’d - to what fate - throughout this earth!
Pitiful Mother, partner of our birth,
Win these from following where his flight doth guide.
And O, inspire in me that holy love
Which leads the soul back to its origin, 10
Till of all other love the link do fail.
This water only can this fire reprove, -
Only such cure suffice for such like sin;
As nail from out a plank is struck by nail.
FAZIO DEGLI UBERTI
HIS PORTRAIT OF HIS LADY, ANGIOLA OF VERONA
CANZONE
I look at the crisp golden-threaded hair
Whereof, to thrall my heart, Love twists a net;
Using at times a string of pearls for bait,
And sometimes with a single rose therein.
I look into her eyes which unaware 5
Through mine own eyes to my heart penetrate;
Their splendour, that is excellently great,
To the sun’s radiance seeming near akin,
Yet from herself a sweeter light to win.
So that I, gazing on that lovely one, 10
Discourse in this wise with my secret thought: -
‘Woe’s me! why am I not,
Even as my wish, alone with her alone? -
That hair of hers, so heavily uplaid,
To shed down braid by braid, 15
And make myself two mirrors of her eyes
Within whose light all other glory dies.’
I look at the amorous beautiful mouth,
The spacious forehead which her locks enclose,
The small white teeth, the straight and shapely nose, 20
And the clear brows of a sweet pencilling.
And then the thought within me gains full growth,
Saying, ‘Be careful that thy glance now goes
Between her lips, red as an open rose,
Quite full of every dear and precious thing; 25
And listen to her gracious answering,
Born of the gentle mind that in her dwells,
Which from all things can glean the nobler half.
Look thou when she doth laugh
How much her laugh is sweeter than aught else. 30
Thus evermore my spirit makes avow
Touching her mouth; till now
I would give anything that I possess,
Only to hear her mouth say frankly, ‘Yes.’
I look at her white easy neck, so well
From shoulders and from bosom lifted out;
And at her round cleft chin, which beyond doubt
No fancy in the world could have design’d.
And then, with longing grown more voluble,
‘Were it not pleasant now,’ pursues my thought, 40
‘To have that kiss within thy two arms caught
And kiss it till the mark were left behind?’
Then, urgently: ‘The eyelids of thy mind
Open thou: if such loveliness be given
To sight here, - what of that which she doth hide? 45
Only the wondrous ride
Of suns and planets through the visible heaven
Tells us that there beyond is Paradise.
Thus, if thou fix thine eyes,
Of a truth certainly thou must infer 50
That every earthly joy abides in her.’
I look at the large arms, so lithe and round,-
At the hands, which are white and rosy too, -
At the long fingers, clasp’d and woven through,
Bright with the ring which one of them doth wear. 55
Then my thought whispers: ‘Were thy body wound
Within those arms, as loving women’s do
In all thy veins were born a life made new
Which thou couldst find no language to declare.
Behold if any picture can compare 60
With her just limbs, each fit in shape and size,
Or match her angel’s colour like a pearl.
She is a gentle girl
To see; yet when it needs her, scorn can rise.
Meek, bashful, and in all things temperate, 65
Her virtue holds its state;
In whose least act there is that gift express’d
Which of all reverence makes her worthiest.’
Soft as a peacock steps she, or as a stork
Straight on herself, taller and statelier: 70
’Tis a good sight how every limb doth stir
For ever in a womanly sweet way.
‘Open thy soul to see God’s perfect work,’
(My thought begins afresh,) ‘and look at her
When with some lady-friend exceeding fair 75
She bends and mingles arms and locks in play.
Even as all lesser lights vanish away,
When the sun moves, before his dazzling face,
So is this lady brighter than all these.
How should she fail to please,- 80
Love’s self being no more than her loveliness?
In all her ways some beauty springs to view;
All that she loves to do
Tends alway to her honour’s single scope;
And only from good deeds she draws her hope.’ 85
Song, thou canst surely say, without pretence,
That since the first fair woman ever made,
Not one can have display’d
More power upon all hearts than this one doth;
Because in her are both 90
Loveliness and the soul’s true excellence: -
And yet (woe’s me!) is pity absent thence?
FRANCO SACCHETTI
HIS TALK WITH CERTAIN PEASANT GIRLS
BALLATA
‘Ye graceful peasant-girls and mountain-maids,
Whence come ye homeward through these evening shades?’
‘We come from where the forest skirts the hill;
A very little cottage is our home,
Where with our father and our mother still 5
We live, and love our life, nor wish to roam.
Back every evening from the field we come
And bring with us our sheep from pasturing there.’
‘Where, tell me, is the hamlet of your birth,
Whose fruitage is the sweetest by so much? 10
Ye seem to me as creatures worship-worth,
The shining of your countenance is such.
No gold about your clothes, coarse to the touch,
Nor silver; yet with such an angel’s air!
‘I think your beauties might make great complaint 15
Of being thus shown over mount and dell;
Because no city is so excellent
But that your stay therein were honourable.
In very truth, now, does it like ye well
To live so poorly on the hill-side here?’ 20
‘Better it liketh one of us, pardiè,
Behind her flock to seek the pasture-stance,
Far better than it liketh one of ye
To ride unto your curtain’d rooms and dance.
We seek no riches, neither golden chance 25
Save wealth of flowers to weave into our hair.’
Ballad, if I were now as once I was,
I’d make myself a shepherd on some hill,
And, without telling anyone, would pass
Where these girls went, and follow at their will; 30
And ‘Mary’ and ‘Martin’ we would murmur still,
And I would be for ever where they were.
ON A FINE DAY
CATCH
‘Be stirring, girls! we ought to have a run:
Look, did you ever see so fine a day?
Fling spindles right away
And rocks and reels and wools:
Now don’t be fools, - 5
To-day your spinning’s done.
Up with you, up with you!’ So, one by one,
They caught hands, catch who can,
Then singing, singing, to the river they ran,
They ran, they ran 10
To the river, the river:
And the merry-go-round
Carries them at a bound
To the mill o’er the river.
‘Miller, miller, miller, 15
Weigh me this lady
And this other. Now steady!’
‘You weigh a hundred, you,
And this one weighs two.’
‘Why, dear you do get stout!’ 20
‘You think so, dear, no doubt:
Are you in a decline?’
‘Keep your temper and I’ll keep mine.’
‘Come, girls,’ (‘O thank you, miller!’)
‘We’ll go home when you will.’ 25
So, as we cross’d the hill,
A clown came in great grief,
Crying, ‘Stop thief! stop thief!
O what a wretch I am!’
‘Well, fellow, here’s a clatter! 30
Well, what’s the matter?’
‘O Lord, O Lord, the wolf has got my lamb!’
Now at that word of woe,
The beauties came and clung about me so
That if wolf had but shown himself, may be 35
I too had caught a lamb that fled to me.
ON A WET DAY
CATCH
As I walk’d thinking through a little grove,
Some girls that gather’d flowers kept passing me,
Saying, ‘Look here! look there!’ delightedly.
‘Oh here it is!’
‘What’s that?’
‘A lily, love.’
‘And there are violets!’ 5
‘Further for roses! Oh the lovely pets -
The darling beauties! Oh the nasty thorn!
Look here, my hand’s all torn!’
‘What’s that that jumps?’ Oh don’t! it’s a grasshopper!’
�
��Come run, come run, 10
Here’s bluebells!’ Oh what fun!’
‘Not that way! Stop her!’
‘Yes, this way!’
‘Pluck them, then!’
‘Oh, I’ve found mushrooms! Oh look here!’ Oh! ‘m
Quite sure that further on we’ll get wild thyme.’ 15
‘Oh, we shall stay too long, it’s going to rain!
There’s lightning, oh there’s thunder!’
‘Oh, shan’t we hear the vesper-bell, I wonder?’
‘Why it’s not nones, you silly little thing;
And don’t you hear the nightingales that sing 20
Fly away O die away Y
‘I feel so funny! Hush!’
‘Why, where? what is it then?’
‘Ah! in that bush!’
So every girl here knocks it, shakes and shocks it,
Till with the stir they make
Out skurries a great snake.
‘O Lord! O me! Alack! Ah me! alack!’
They scream, and then all run and scream again,
And then in heavy drops comes down the rain.
Each running at the other in a fright,
Each trying to get before the others, and crying
And flying, stumbling, tumbling, wrong or right;
One sets her knee
There where her foot should be;
One has her hands and dress
All smother’d up with mud in a fine mess;
And one gets trampled on by two or three.
What’s gather’d is let fall
About the wood and not pick’d up at all.
The wreaths of flowers are scatter’d on the ground;
And still as screaming, hustling without rest
They run this way and that and round and round,
She thinks herself in luck who runs the best.
I stood quite still to have a perfect view,
And never noticed till I got wet through.
ANONYMOUS: OF TRUE AND FALSE SINGING
BALLATA
A little wild bird sometimes at my ear
Sings his own little verses very clear.
Others sing louder that I do not hear.
For singing loudly is not singing well;
But ever by the song that’s soft and low
The master-singer’s voice is plain to tell.
Few have it, and yet all are masters now,
And each of them can trill out what he calls
His ballads, canzonets and madrigals.
The world with masters is so cover’d o’er
There is no room for pupils any more.
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 33
