Myrtilla, I have seen you eat —
Have heard you drink, to be precise —
Your soup, and, notwithstanding, sweet,
The gurgitation wasn't nice,
I overlooked a tiny fault
Like that with just a grain of salt.

And, sweetest maid in all New York,
When all ungracefully you pierce
The toothsome oyster with your fork
I realize you're pretty fierce:
But such a feat, be't understood,
Nor Venus nor Diana could.

I've seen you hang, high in the air,
A stalk of fresh asparagus,
Guiding its succulence to where

Almighty God, unchangeable,
Who framed the universe entire
Thy truth to see;
Thou who for loving us so well
Didst in Thine agony expire
On Calvary;
Since with such suffering didst deign
To make amend for our transgression
O Agnus Dei.
Placed with the thief let us obtain
Salvation in his grief's confession:

Throned upon light, Thou very God, Love our Queen,
Daughter of God, mystery-worker, hear me!
Spare from all love's weariness and bitterness
My spirit, O Queen!
Come to me! Thou didst come of old when I called,
Hearing all my crying upon the throne of
Thy Heaven; yea, didst come in answer, and leave
God's palace of gold,
Harnessing to Thy chariot; the love-birds,
Making haste, bore Thee to the gloom of our earth,
With the quick beat of many wings, adown mid-
Air from Heaven's height.
Swiftly they come. Then, Blessed Helper, ah! then,

Winged Love himself is a prisoner in heaven, captured by your eyes, Timarion.

Myiscus, whose eyes had stabbed me, me whose breast was never wounded by Desire, said:
" I have overcome this boaster and in disdain I tread underfoot the arrogance of this staff-bearing poet! "
But I sighed and answered: " What wonder? Love humbled even Zeus on Olympus! "

Clouded vision, light obscure,
Moody glory, living death,
Fortune that cannot endure,
Fickle weeping, joy a breath,
Bitter-sweet and sweet unsure,
Peace and anger, sudden crossed,
Such is love, its trappings sure
Decked with glory for its cost.

Eyes, betrayers of the soul, hunters of new loves, ever caught in the snares of Aphrodite, you seize another Love, as if sheep should seize a wolf or a crow a scorpion or ashes be put on a glowing fire!
Do what you will. But why pour out streaming tears when you return immediately to the same fetters?
You are burned in beauty; you are consumed from below; Love is the great chef of the soul!

MARINO

Lover than Love more blinde, whose bold thoughts dare
Fix on a Woman is both young and fair:
If Argus with a hundred Eyes not one
Could guard, hop'st thou to keep thine, who hast none?

Answer

I'm blinde, 'tis true, but in Loves rules, defect
Of sence, is aided by the Intellect.
And senses by each other are suppli'd,
The touch enjoyes what's to the sight deni'd.

Already the soft dawn — and sleepless on the threshold Damis breathes out what little life is left him, for he looked at Heraclitus and under the rays of those eyes he was as wax upon hot charcoal.
Most unhappy Damis, rise up and I who have also a wound from Love will mingle my tears with yours.

O thou that singst so sweet a song
Born of the joyousness of strife,
When thou sayst that, wert never wrong-
Er in thy life.

The bard who loves a thousand things
Can give himself to lofty rhyme;
He has, to smite the lyric strings,
A lot of time.

But, loveliest of the laureates,
As to thyself is surely known,
No time hath he who concentrates