The sun strikes full upon the mud all day:

It remains vile, nor the sun's worth is less. "By race I am gentle," the proud man doth say: He is the mud, the sun is gentleness.

Let no man predicate]

That aught the name of gentleness should have,
Even in a King's estate,

Except the heart there be a gentle man's.
The star-beam lights the wave,—

Heaven holds the star and the star's radiance.

God, in the understanding of high Heaven,

Burns more than in our sight the living sun:
There to behold His face unveiled is given;
And Heaven, whose will is homage paid to One
Fulfils the things which live

In God, from the beginning excellent.
So should my lady give

That truth which in her eyes is glorified,
On which her heart is bent,

To me whose service waiteth at her side.

My lady, God shall ask,

What daredst thou?"

(When my soul stands with all her acts review'd ;) "Thou passedst Heaven, into My sight, as now, To make Me of vain love similitude.

To Me doth praise belong,

And to the Queen of all the realm of grace
Who slayeth fraud and wrong."

Then may I plead :

"As though from Thee he came,

Love wore an angel's face :

Lord, if I loved her, count it not my shame."

III

SONNET

He will praise his Lady

YEA, let me praise my lady whom I love :
Likening her unto the lily and rose:

Brighter than morning star her visage glows;
She is beneath even as her Saint above;
She is as the air in summer which God wove
Of purple and of vermilion glorious;
As gold and jewels richer than man knows.
Love's self, being love for her, must holier prove.
Ever as she walks she hath a sober grace,

Making bold men abashed and good men glad;
If she delight thee not, thy heart must err.

No man dare look on her, his thoughts being base :
Nay, let me say even more than I have said ;-

No man could think base thoughts who looked on her.

IV

CANZONE

He perceives his Rashness in Love, but has no choice

I HOLD him, verily, of mean emprise,

Whose rashness tempts a strength too great to bear; As I have done, alas! who turned mine eyes

Upon those perilous eyes of the most fair.
Unto her eyes I bow'd;

No need her other beauties in that hour
Should aid them, cold and proud:

As when the vassals of a mighty lord,

What time he needs his power,

Are all girt round him to make strong his sword.

With such exceeding force the stroke was dealt
That by mine eyes its path might not be stay'd;
But deep into the heart it pierced, which felt
The pang of the sharp wound, and waxed afraid;
Then rested in strange wise,

As when some creature utterly outworn

Sinks into bed and lies.

And she the while doth in no manner care,
But goes her way in scorn,

Beholding herself alway proud and fair.

And she may be as proud as she shall please,
For she is still the fairest woman found :

A sun she seems among the rest; and these
Have all their beauties in her splendour drown'd.
In her is every grace,-

Simplicity of wisdom, noble speech,

Accomplished loveliness;

All earthly beauty is her diadem,

This truth my song would teach,

My lady is of ladies chosen gem.

Love to my lady's service yieldeth me,—
Will I, or will I not, the thing is so,-

Nor other reason can I say or see,

Except that where it lists the wind doth blow.
He rules and gives no sign;

Nor once from her did show of love upbuoy
This passion which is mine.

It is because her virtue's strength and stir
So fill her full of joy

That I am glad to die for love of her.

V

SONNET

Of Moderation and Tolerance

HE that has grown to wisdom hurries not,

But thinks and weighs what Reason bids him do;
And after thinking he retains his thought
Until as he conceived the fact ensue.
Let no man to o'erweening pride be wrought,
But count his state as Fortune's gift and due.
He is a fool who deems that none has sought
The truth, save he alone, or knows it true.
Many strange birds are on the air abroad,
Nor all are of one flight or of one force,
But each after his kind dissimilar:

To each was portioned of the breath of God,
Who gave them divers instincts from one source.
Then judge not thou thy fellows what they are.

VI

SONNET

Of Human Presumption

AMONG my thoughts I count it wonderful,
How foolishness in man should be so rife
That masterly he takes the world to wife
As though no end were set unto his rule :
In labour alway that his ease be full,

As though there never were another life;
Till Death throws all his order into strife,
And round his head his purposes doth pull.
And evermore one sees the other die,

And sees how all conditions turn to change,

Yet in no wise may the blind wretch be heal'd.

I therefore say, that sin can even estrange

Man's very sight, and his heart satisfy

To live as lives a sheep upon the field.

GUERZO DI MONTECANTI

SONNET

He is out of heart with his Time

Ir any man would know the very cause
Which makes me to forget my speech in rhyme,
All the sweet songs I sang in other time,—

I'll tell it in a sonnet's simple clause.

I hourly have beheld how good withdraws
To nothing, and how evil mounts the while :
Until my heart is gnawed as with a file,
Nor aught of this world's worth is what it was.
At last there is no other remedy

But to behold the universal end;

And so upon this hope my thoughts are urged :
To whom, since truth is sunk and dead at sea,
There has no other part or prayer remain'd,
Except of seeing the world's self submerged.

INGHILFREDI, SICILIANO

CANZONE

He rebukes the Evil of that Time

HARD is it for a man to please all men:
I therefore speak in doubt,

And as one may that looketh to be chid.
But who can hold his peace in these days?-when
Guilt cunningly slips out,

And Innocence atones for what he did;

When worth is crushed, even if it be not hid;
When on crushed worth, guile sets his foot to rise;
And when the things wise men have counted wise

Make fools to smile and stare and lift the lid.

Let none who have not wisdom govern you:
For he that was a fool

At first shall scarce grow wise under the sun.
And as it is, my whole heart bleeds anew

To think how hard a school

Young hope grows old at, as these seasons run. Behold, sirs, we have reached this thing for one:The lord before his servant bends the knee,

And service puts on lordship suddenly.

Ye speak o' the end?

Ye have not yet begun,

I would not have ye without counsel ta'en
Follow my words; nor meant,

If one should talk and act not, to praise him
But who, being much opposed, speaks not again,
Confesseth himself shent

And put to silence,-by some loud-mouthed mime, Perchance, for whom I speak not in this rhyme. Strive what ye can; and if ye cannot all,

Yet should not your hearts fall:

The fruit commends the flower in God's good time,

(For without fruit, the flower delights not God): Wherefore let him whom Hope

Puts off, remember time is not gone by.
Let him say calmly: "Thus far on this road
A foolish trust buoyed up

My soul, and made it like the summer fly
Burned in the flame it seeks: even so was I:
But now I'll aid myself: for still this trust,
I find, falleth to dust:

The fish gapes for the bait-hook, and doth die."

And yet myself, who bid ye do this thing,-
Am I not also spurn'd

By the proud feet of Hope continually;
Till that which gave me such good comforting
Is altogether turn'd

Unto a fire whose heat consumeth me?

I am so girt with grief that my thoughts be Tired of themselves, and from my soul I loathe Silence and converse both;

And my own face is what I hate to see.

Because no act is meet now nor unmeet.

He that does evil, men applaud his name, And the well-doer must put up with shame: Yea, and the worst man sits in the best seat,

RINALDO D'AQUINO

I

CANZONE

He is resolved to be joyful in Love

A THING is in my mind,

To have my joy again,

Which I had almost put away from me.
It were in foolish kind

For ever to refrain

From song, and renounce gladness utterly.
Seeing that I am given into the rule

Of Love, whom only pleasure makes alive,
Whom pleasure nourishes and brings to growth:
The wherefore sullen sloth

Will he not suffer in those serving him ;

But pleasant they must seem,

That good folk love them and their service thrive; Nor even their pain must make them sorrowful.