Classic Poem

M ARVELLOUSLY elate,
Love makes my spirit warm
With noble sympathies:
As one whose mind is set
Upon some glorious form,
To paint it as it is; —
I verily who bear
Thy face at heart, most fair,
Am like to him in this.

Not outwardly declared,
Within me dwells enclosed
Thine image as thou art.
Ah! strangely hath it fared!
I know not if thou know'st
The love within my heart.
Exceedingly afraid,
My hope I have not said,
But gazed on thee apart.

Because desire was strong,
I made a portraiture
In thine own likeness, love:
When absence has grown long,
I gaze, till I am sure
That I behold thee move;
As one who purposeth
To save himself by faith,
Yet sees not, nor can prove.

Then comes the burning pain:
As with the man that hath
A fire within his breast, —
When most he struggles, then
Most boils the flame in wrath,
And will not let him rest.
So still I burned and shook,
To pass, and not to look
In thy face, loveliest.

For where thou art I pass,
And do not lift mine eyes,
Lady, to look on thee:
But, as I go, alas!
With bitterness of sighs
I mourn exceedingly.
Alas! the constant woe!
Myself I do not know,
So sore it troubles me.

And I have sung thy praise,
Lady, and many times
Have told thy beauties o'er.
Hast heard in anyways,
Perchance, that these my rhymes
Are song-craft and no more?
Nay, rather deem, when thou
Shalt see me pass and bow,
These words I sicken for.

Delicate song of mine,
Go sing thou a new strain:
Seek, with the first sunshine,
Our lady, mine and thine, —
The rose of Love's domain,
Than red gold comelier.
" Lady, in Love's name hark
To Jacopo the clerk,
Born in Lentino here."