CANZONE: HE LAMENTS THE PRESUMPTION AND INCONTINENCE OF HIS YOUTH
The devastating flame of that fierce plague,
The foe of virtue, fed with others’ peace
More than itself foresees,
Being still shut in to gnaw its own desire;
Its strength not weaken’d, nor its hues more vague, 5
For all the benison that virtue sheds,
But which for ever spreads
To be a living curse that shall not tire:
Or yet again, that other idle fire
Which flickers with all change as winds may please: 10
One whichsoe’er of these
At length has hidden the true path from me
Which twice man may not see,
And quench’d the intelligence of joy, till now
All solace but abides in perfect woe. 15
Alas! the more my painful spirit grieves,
The more confused with miserable strife
Is that delicious life
Which sighing it recalls perpetually:
But its worst anguish, whence it still receives 20
More pain than death, is sent, to yield the sting
Of perfect suffering,
By him who is my lord and governs me;
Who holds all gracious truth in fealty,
Being nursed in those four sisters’ fond caress 25
Through whom comes happiness.
He now has left me; and I draw my breath
Wound in the arms of Death,
Desirous of her: she is cried upon
In all the prayers my heart puts up alone. 30
How fierce aforetime and how absolute
That wheel of flame which turn’d within my head,
May never quite be said,
Because there are not words to speak the whole.
It slew my hope whereof I lack the fruit, 35
And stung the blood within my living flesh
To be an intricate mesh
Of pain beyond endurance or control;
Withdrawing me from God, who gave my soul
To know the sign where honour has its seat 40
From honour’s counterfeit.
So in its longing my heart finds not hope,
Nor knows what door to ope;
Since, parting me from God, this foe took thought
To shut those paths wherein He may be sought. 45
My second enemy, thrice arm’d in guile,
As wise and cunning to mine overthrow
As her smooth face doth show,
With yet more shameless strength holds mastery.
My spirit, naked of its light and vile, 50
If lit by her with her own deadly gleam,
Which makes all anguish seem
As nothing to her scourges that I see.
O thou the body of grace, abide with me
As thou wert once in the once joyful time; 55
And though thou hate my crime,
Fill not my life with torture to the end;
But in thy mercy, bend
My steps, and for thine honour, back again;
Till finding joy through thee, I bless my pain. 60
Since that first frantic devil without faith
Fell, in thy name, upon the stairs that mount
Unto the limpid fount
Of thine intelligence, - withhold not now
Thy grace, nor spare my second foe from death. 65
For lo! on this my soul has set her trust;
And failing this, thou must
Prove false to truth and honour, seest thou!
Then, saving light and throne of strength, allow
My prayer, and vanquish both my foes at last; 70
That so I be not cast
Into that woe wherein I fear to end.
Yet if it is ordain’d
That I must die ere this be perfected, -
Ah! yield me comfort after I am dead. 75
Ye unadornèd words obscure of sense,
Go weeping, and these sighs along with ye,
And bear mine agony
(Not to be told by words, being too intense,)
To His intelligence 80
Who moved by virtue shall fulfil my breath
In human life or compensating death.
CANZONE: A DISPUTE WITH DEATH
‘O sluggish, hard, ingrate, what doest thou?
Poor sinner, folded round with heavy sin,
Whose life to find out joy alone is bent.
I call thee, and thou fall’st to deafness now;
And, deeming that my path whereby to win 5
Thy seat is lost, there sitt’st thee down content,
And hold’st me to thy will subservient.
But I into thy heart have crept disguised:
Among thy senses and thy sins I went,
By roads thou didst not guess, unrecognized. 10
Tears will not now suffice to bid me go,
Nor countenance abased, nor words of woe.’
Now, when I heard the sudden dreadful voice
Wake thus within to cruel utterance,
Whereby the very heart of hearts did fail, 15
My spirit might not any more rejoice,
But fell from its courageous pride at once,
And turn’d to fly, where flight may not avail.
Then slowly ‘gan some strength to re-inhale
The trembling life which heard that whisper speak, 20
And had conceived the sense with sore travail;
Till in the mouth it murmur’d, very weak,
Saying: ‘Youth, wealth, and beauty, these have I:
O Death! remit thy claim, - I would not die.’
Small sign of pity in that aspect dwells 25
Which then had scatter’d all my life abroad
Till there was comfort with no single sense:
And yet almost in piteous syllables,
When I had ceased to speak, this answer flow’d:
‘Behold what path is spread before thee hence; 30
Thy life has all but a day’s permanence.
And is it for the sake of youth there seems
In loss of human years such sore offence?
Nay, look unto the end of youthful dreams.
What present glory does thy hope possess, 35
That shall not yield ashes and bitterness?’
But, when I look’d on Death made visible,
From my heart’s sojourn brought before mine eyes,
And holding in her hand my grievous sin,
I seem’d to see my countenance, that fell, 40
Shake like a shadow: my heart utter’d cries,
And my soul wept the curse that lay therein.
Then Death: ‘Thus much thine urgent prayer shall win: -
I grant thee the brief interval of youth
At natural pity’s strong soliciting.”5
And I (because I knew that moment’s ruth
But left my life to groan for a frail space)
Fell in the dust upon my weeping face.
So, when she saw me thus abash’d and dumb,
In loftier words she weigh’d her argument, 50
That new and strange it was to hear her speak;
Saying: ‘The path thy fears withhold thee from
Is thy best path. To folly be not shent,
Nor shrink from me because thy flesh is weak.
Thou seest how man is sore confused, and eke 55
How ruinous Chance makes havoc of his life,
And grief is in the joys that he doth seek;
Nor ever pauses the perpetual strife
‘Twixt fear and rage; until beneath the sun
His perfect anguish be fulfill’d and done.’ 60
‘O Death! thou art so dark and difficult,
That never human creature might attain
By his own will to pierce thy secret sense;
Because, foreshadowing thy dread result,
&
nbsp; He may not put his trust in heart or brain, 65
Nor power avails him, nor intelligence.
Behold how cruelly thou takest hence
These forms so beautiful and dignified,
And chain’st them in thy shadow chill and dense,
And forcest them in narrow graves to hide; 70
With pitiless hate subduing still to thee
The strength of man and woman’s delicacy.’
‘Not for thy fear the less I come at last,
For this thy tremor, for thy painful sweat.
Take therefore thought to leave (for lo! I call:) 75
Kinsfolk and comrades, all thou didst hold fast, -
Thy father and thy mother, - to forget
All these thy brethren, sisters, children, all
Cast sight and hearing from thee; let hope fall;
Leave every sense and thy whole intellect, 80
These things wherein thy life made festival:
For I have wrought thee to such strange effect
That thou hast no more power to dwell with these
As living man. Let pass thy soul in peace.’
Yea, Lord. O thou, the Builder of the spheres, 85
Who, making me, didst shape me, of thy grace,
In thine own image and high counterpart;
Do thou subdue my spirit, long perverse,
To weep within thy will a certain space,
Ere yet thy thunder come to rive my heart. 90
Set in my hand some sign of what thou art,
Lord God, and suffer me to seek out Christ, -
Weeping, to seek him in thy ways apart;
Until my sorrow have at length sufficed
In some accepted instant to atone 95
For sins of thought, for stubborn evil done.
Dishevell’d and in tears, go, song of mine,
To break the hardness of the heart of man:
Say how his life began
From dust, and in that dust doth sink supine: 100
Yet, say, the unerring spirit of grief shall guide
His soul, being purified,
To seek its Maker at the heavenly shrine.
CINO DA PISTOIA: TO DANTE ALIGHIERI
SONNET: HE INTERPRETS DANTE’S DREAM, RELATED IN THE FIRST SONNET OF THE VITA NUOVA
Each lover’s longing leads him naturally
Unto his lady’s heart his heart to show;
And this it is that Love would have thee know
By the strange vision which he sent to thee.
With thy heart therefore, flaming outwardly, 5
In humble guise he fed thy lady so,
Who long had lain in slumber, from all woe
Folded within a mantle silently.
Also, in coming, Love might not repress
His joy, to yield thee thy desire achieved, 10
Whence heart should unto heart true service bring.
But understanding the great love-sickness
Which in thy lady’s bosom was conceived,
He pitied her, and wept in vanishing.
TO DANTE ALIGHIERI
SONNET: HE CONCEIVES OF SOME COMPENSATION IN DEATH
Dante, whenever this thing happeneth, -
That Love’s desire is quite bereft of Hope,
(Seeking in vain at ladies’ eyes some scope
Of joy, through what the heart for ever saith,) -
I ask thee, can amends be made by Death? 5
Is such sad pass the last extremity? -
Or may the Soul that never fear’d to die
Then in another body draw new breath?
Lo! thus it is through her who governs all
Below, - that I, who enter’d at her door, 10
Now at her dreadful window must fare forth.
Yea, and I think through her it doth befall
That even ere yet the road is travell’d o’er
My bones are weary and life is nothing worth.
TO DANTE ALIGHIERI
CANZONE: ON THE DEATH OF BEATRICE PORTINARI
Albeit my prayers have not so long delay’d,
But craved for thee, ere this, that Pity and Love
Which only bring our heavy life some rest;
Yet is not now the time so much o’erstay’d
But that these words of mine which tow’rds thee move
Must find thee still with spirit dispossess’d,
And say to thee: ‘In Heaven she now is bless’d
Even as the blessed name men call’d her by;
While thou dost ever cry,
“Alas! the blessing of mine eyes is flown!”’
Behold, these words set down
Are needed still, for still thou sorrowest.
Then hearken; I would yield advisedly
Some comfort: Stay these sighs: give ear to me.
We know for certain that in this blind world
Each man’s subsistence is of grief and pain,
Still trail’d by fortune through all bitterness:
At last the flesh within a shroud is furl’d,
And into Heaven’s rejoicing doth attain
The joyful soul made free of earthly stress.
Then wherefore sighs thy heart in abjectness,
Which for her triumph should exult aloud?
For He the Lord our God
Hath call’d her, hearkening what her Angel said,
To have Heaven perfected.
Each saint for a new thing beholds her face,
And she the face of our Redemption sees,
Discoursing with immortal substances.
Why now do pangs of torment clutch thy heart
Which with thy love should make thee overjoy’d, 30
As him whose intellect hath pass’d the skies?
Behold, the spirits of thy life depart
Daily to Heaven with her, they so are buoy’d
With their desire, and Love so bids them rise.
O God! and thou, a man whom God made wise, 35
To nurse a charge of care, and love the same!
I tell thee in His Name
From sin of sighing grief to hold thy breath,
Nor let thy heart to death,
Nor harbour death’s resemblance in thine eyes. 40
God hath her with Himself eternally,
Yet she inhabits every hour with thee.
Be comforted, Love cries, be comforted!
Devotion pleads, Peace, for the love of God!
O yield thyself to prayers so full of grace; 45
And make thee naked now of this dull weed
Which ‘neath thy foot were better to be trod;
For man through grief despairs and ends his days.
How ever shouldst thou see the lovely face
If any desperate death should once be thine? 50
From justice so condign
Withdraw thyself even now; that in the end
Thy heart may not offend
Against thy soul, which in the holy place,
In Heaven, still hopes to see her and to be 55
Within her arms. Let this hope comfort thee.
Look thou into the pleasure wherein dwells
Thy lovely lady who is in Heaven crown’d,
Who is herself thy rope in Heaven, the while
To make thy memory hallow’d she avails; 60
Being a soul within the deep Heaven bound,
A face on thy heart painted, to beguile
Thy heart of grief which else should turn it vile.
Even as she seem’d a wonder here below,
On high she seemeth so, - 65
Yea, better known, is there more wondrous yet.
And even as she was met
First by the angels with sweet song and smile,
Thy spirit bears her back upon the wing,
Which often in those ways is journeying. 70
Of thee she entertains the blessed throngs,
And says to them: ‘While yet my body thrave
On earth, I gat much honour which he gave,
Commending me in his commended songs.’
Also she asks alway of God our Lord 75
To give thee peace according to His word.
MADRIGAL: TO HIS LADY SELVAGGIA VERGIOLESI; LIKENING HIS LOVE TO A SEARCH FOR GOLD
I am all bent to glean the golden ore
Little by little from the river-bed;
Hoping the day to see
When Croesus shall be conquer’d in my store.
Therefore, still sifting where the sands are spread, 5
I labour patiently:
Till, thus intent on this thing and no more,-
If to a vein of silver I were led,
It scarce could gladden me.
And, seeing that no joy’s so warm i’ the core 10
As this whereby the heart is comforted
And the desire set free, -
Therefore thy bitter love is still my scope,
Lady, from whom it is my life’s sore theme
More painfully to sift the grains of hope 15
Than gold out of that stream.
SONNET: TO LOVE, IN GREAT BITTERNESS
O Love, O thou that, for my fealty,
Only in torment dost thy power employ,
Give me, for God’s sake, something of thy joy,
That I may learn what good there is in thee.
Yea, for, if thou art glad with grieving me, 5
Surely my very life thou shalt destroy
When thou renew’st my pain, because the joy
Must then be wept for with the misery.
He that had never sense of good, nor sight,
Esteems his ill estate but natural, 10
Which so is lightlier borne: his case is mine.
But, if thou wouldst uplift me for a sign,
Bidding me drain the curse and know it all,
I must a little taste its opposite.
SONNET: DEATH IS NOT WITHOUT HUT WITHIN HIM
This fairest lady, who, as well I wot,
Found entrance by her beauty to my soul,
Pierced through mine eyes my heart, which erst was whole,
Sorely, yet, makes as though she knew it not;
Nay, turns upon me now, to anger wrought, 5
Dealing me harshness for my pain’s best dole,
And is so changed by her own wrath’s control,
That I go thence, in my distracted thought
Content to die; and, mourning, cry abroad
On Death, as upon one afar from me; 10
But Death makes answer from within my heart.
Then, hearing her so hard at hand to be,
I do commend my spirit unto God;
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 45
