And impulse sprung from due degrees
Of sense and spirit sweetly mixed. Her modesty, her chiefest grace,
The cestus clasping Venus' side, Is potent to deject the face
Of him who would affront its pride.
Wrong dares not in her presence speak,
Nor spotted thought its taint disclose
Under the protest of a cheek
Outbragging Nature's boast, the rose.
In mind and manners how discreet!
How artless in her very art!
How candid in discourse! how sweet
The concord of her lips and heart!
How (not to call true instinct's bent
And woman's very nature harm),
How amiable and innocent
Her pleasure in her power to charm!
How humbly careful to attract,
Though crowned with all the soul desires, Connubial aptitude exact,
Diversity that never tires!
SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours yet free.
Be you not proud of that rich hair,
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone
When all your world of beauty's gone.
IF IT BE TRUE THAT ANY BEAUTEOUS THING. | Forgive me if I cannot turn away
If it be true that any beauteous thing
Raises the pure and just desire of man
From earth to God, the eternal fount of all,
Such I believe my love; for as in her
So fair, in whom I all besides forget,
I view the gentle work of her Creator,
I have no care for any other thing,
Whilst thus I love. Nor is it marvelous,
Since the effect is not of my own power,
If the soul doth, by nature tempted forth,
Enamored through the eyes,
Repose upon the eyes which it resembleth,
And through them riseth to the Primal Love,
As to its end, and honors in admiring;
For who adores the Maker needs must love his
work.
From the Italian of MICHAEL ANGELO,
by J. E. TAYLOR.
THE MIGHT OF ONE FAIR FACE.
THE might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above,
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For O, how good, how beautiful, must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove!
From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light.
From the Italian of MICHAEL ANGELO, by J. E. TAYLOR.
FROM "THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS,"
LOVE scorns degrees; the low he lifteth high,
The high he draweth down to that fair plain
Whereon, in his divine equality,
Two loving hearts may meet, nor meet in vain ;
'Gainst such sweet leveling Custom cries amain,
But o'er its harshest utterance one bland sigh,
Breathed passion-wise, doth mount victorious
still,
For Love, earth's lord, must have his lordly will.
ON a hill there grows a flower,
Fair befall the dainty sweet!
By that flower there is a bower
Where the heavenly muses meet.