WHEREIN LOVE GUIDES HIM TO REASON

Never fled shaken mariner to port
From the black welter, from the hurricane,
As from the mutinous tumult of the brain
I tear away — from thoughts of dark resort;
Nor ever blazed a bolt from heaven's fort
Blasting the mortal sight, as with rich pain
And pride and passion burned that matchless twain
Wherein Love tips the gold barbs of his sport.
Throned in his own light there he lords it, there —
Not blind, but quivered, naked — or almost:
A boy alive, not mythical, no dear ghost;

WHEREIN HE RECALLS THE FIRST SIGHT OF LAURA AND LOVE

Never so splendidly did the sun arise
When the sky stood most purged of taint and mist,
Nor, after rain, has the rainbow's amethyst
In the washed air displayed so many dyes
As are the colours that against my eyes
Dazzled that day I strapped upon my wrist
Love's load, that face (the florid I resist
In speech) beyond all mortal rivalries.
I saw Love turning, saw his eyes at turning
Look with such light upon me, such sweet burning
That all things else went dark that day and since.

WHEREIN HE ENLARGES UPON LOVE'S COURAGE AND COWARDICE

The long Love that is sovereign to my mind
And in my heart maintains his purple place,
With arrogant stride presses into my face,
Camps, flaunts his flag, parades there proud and blind:
She, that instructs to love and helps us find
Anguish therein, she would our heat abase
By reins of reason, shame and reverent grace,
And in our flesh the spurs of anger grind.
Whereupon Love to the heart's forest flies,
With sharp dismay quitting his enterprise,
And there in tears and panic he must hide.

WHEREIN HE EXPATIATES UPON LOVE'S PARADOXES

I find no peace, yet from all wars abstain me;
I fear, I hope, I burn — and straightway wizen;
I mount above the wind, yet stay unrisen;
Grasp the world — thus — yet nothing does it gain me.
Love neither lets me go, nor will detain me;
Gives me no leave, nor yet keeps me in prison:
I am not held, and yet the hard chain is on
The heart; he yields no death, yet will he chain me.
Sightless, I see; and without tongue, I sorrow;
I cling to life, and yet would gladly perish;

WHEREIN HE ENUMERATES THE WEAPONS IN LOVE'S ARSENAL

Love uses me as target for his lance,
As snow in sunlight or as wax in flame,
Or wind-swept cloud; and though upon your name
I call, O Laura, pity looks askance.
Your flashing eyes first caused the dart to dance
In my sick breast; nor time nor place can tame
Its fire. From you, that take no thought of blame,
Were born the pangs that thwart deliverance.
Each thought drives arrows, and your face a sun,
My passion's heat: and these Love urges well
To rend my heart, to dazzle me to hell.

WHEREIN HE TELLS THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE

If this should not be Love, O God, what shakes me?
If Love it is, what strange, what rich delight!
If Love be kind, why has it fangs to bite?
If cruel, why so sweet the barb that rakes me?
If Love I crave, why this lament that breaks me?
If not, what tears or sighs can mend my plight?
O Death in Life, dear pain, where lies thy might
If I refuse the doom that overtakes me?
If I consent, without a cause I grieve:
So in a tempest do my fortunes heave,
By winds contrary and by waters tost;

LAURA'S IMAGE CONFRONTS HIM EVERYWHITHER

With inexpressible sweetness overflowing,
Which from that lovely face mine eyes drew streaming,
And sealed as fast, for very rapture gleaming,
Never to dwell on lesser beauty's glowing,
Then, Love at Love's beloved perfection knowing,
I left it: now my mind devotes its dreaming
To her alone; what is not to her seeming,
It shuts away from any sight or showing.
Deep in a dell secluded from all peering,
Sole consolation of my sad heart's sighing,
Pensive and slow, I walk with Love communing:

WHEREIN HE RECALLS THE SAD SWEET SOUVENIRS OF LOVE

That window where my whole sun sets and rises
Forever dazzling, lending earth new lustres,
And that where still, when savage Boreas blusters
In the brief days, the gusts assume fierce guises;
That seat of stone where she soliloquizes
In solitude beneath the cypress clusters;
Haunts where her shadow gleamed; soft grass that musters
Proud memories of her radiant enterprises;
That spot where Love first wrought my overthrowing;
The sweet new season that, without relenting,

WHEREIN, HAVING ONCE FALLEN, HE IS FORCED TO THE ETERNAL SLAVERY OF LOVE

So, with perpetual expectation spent,
And in this lingering war of sighs defeated,
I scorn desires and hate the hopes repeated,
And loathe the fetters of my discontent;
But that pure face within my soul deep-seated,
Stamped there, with every motion evident,
Hedges me in, refuses to relent,
Proves incomplete an agony completed.
This marked my doom when liberty's hard highway
Was like another Eden barred with flame:
The mere pursuit of sense is filled with shame.

WHEREIN LOVE FORETELLS THE POET OF HIS RETURN TO LAURA AND POETRY

Write — so Love told my heart and often said —
Write what thou seest large in letters of gold,
That white as ashes is the flock I fold,
And in a moment made alive and dead.
Time was thy spirit felt my power spread
A public proof to lovers young and old;
When other passions found in thee a hold,
I soon caught up with thee, though thou hadst fled.
And if the eyes where first I stood revealed,
Those brilliant eyes where my sweet flag unfurled,