I go measuring out slow, hesitant paces,and keep my eyes intent on fleeingany place where human footsteps mark the sand.I find no other defence to protect mefrom other people’s open notice,since in my aspect, whose joy is quenched,they see from outside how I flame within.So now I believe that mountains and river-banksand rivers and forests…
a guileless butterfly accustomed to the light,flies in its wanderings into someone’s face,causing it to die, and the other to weep:so I am always running towards the sunlight of her eyes,fatal to me, from which so much sweetness comesthat Love takes no heed of the reins of reason:and he who discerns them is conquered by…
where men at arms go at great risk,I go safely, since nothing can frighten meexcept that sun whose rays are alive with love:and I go singing (oh, my unwise thoughts!)of her whom heaven cannot set distant from me,whom I have in my vision, and seem to seewomen and girls with her, and they are beech…
that I spent in loving something mortal,without lifting myself in flight, for I had wingsthat might have freed me for spaces not so low.You who see my shameful and impious sins,King of Heaven, invisible, immortal,help this frail and straying soul,and mend its defects through your grace:So that, if I have lived in war and tempest,I…
‘Quando io movo i sospiri a chiamar voi,’When I utter sighs, in calling out to you,with the name that Love wrote on my heart,the sound of its first sweet accents beginto be heard within the word LAUdable.Your REgal state, that I next encounter,doubles my power for the high attempt;but: ‘TAcit’, the ending cries, ‘since to…
and the season, and the time, and the hour, and the moment,and the beautiful country, and the place where I was joinedto the two beautiful eyes that have bound me:and blessed be the first sweet sufferingthat I felt in being conjoined with Love,and the bow, and the shafts with which I was pierced,and the wounds…
Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, Erno, Indus, or Ganges,Don, Danube, Alpheus, Garonne, or the breaking sea,Rhône, Iber, Rhine, Seine, Elbe, Loire, Ebro:Not ivy, fir, pine, beech, or junipercould lessen the fire that vexes my sad heart,as much as the lovely river that always weeps with me,and the little tree I adorn and praise in verse.I find they…
perhaps for his brood, or his dear companion,fills the sky and country round with sweetnesswith so many piteous, bright notes,and it seems all night he stays beside me,and reminds me of my harsh fate:for I have no one to grieve for but myself,who believed that Death could not take a goddess.Oh how easy it is…
by following what turns and flees,and flies from Love’s light supple noosein front of my slow pace,that the more I recall its stepsto the safe road, the less it hears me:nor does spurring on help me, or turning about,resisting what Love does by nature.And then if the bit gathers me to him by force,I remain…
after the nights spent wandering,with that fierce desire that burned in my heart,gazing on limbs so adorned as to do me harm,now may it please you by Your light that I turnto the greater life and more beautiful work,so that my harsh adversary having casthis nets in vain, may be discredited.Now, my Lord, the eleventh…
