A pena prima.

Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes
    Which to your living eyes were life and light,
    When closed at last in death’s injurious night
    He opened them on God in Paradise. 
I know it and I weep, too late made wise: 
    Yet was the fault not mine; for death’s fell spite
    Robbed my desire of that supreme delight,
    Which in your better memory never dies. 
Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine
    To make unique Cecchino smile in stone
    For ever, now that earth hath made him dim,
If the beloved within the lover shine,
    Since art without him cannot work alone,
    You must I carve to tell the world of him.

IX.

THANKS FOR A GIFT.

Al zucchero, alla mula.

The sugar, candles, and the saddled mule,
    Together with your cask of malvoisie,
    So far exceed all my necessity
    That Michael and not I my debt must rule,
In such a glassy calm the breezes fool
    My sinking sails, so that amid the sea
    My bark hath missed her way, and seems to be
    A wisp of straw whirled on a weltering pool. 
To yield thee gift for gift and grace for grace,
    For food and drink and carriage to and fro,
    For all my need in every time and place,
O my dear lord, matched with the much I owe,
    All that I am were no real recompense: 
    Paying a debt is not munificence.

X.

TO GANDOLFO PORRINO.

ON HIS MISTRESS FAUSTINA MANCINA.

La nuova alta belta.

That new transcendent fair who seems to be
    Peerless in heaven as in this world of woe,
    (The common folk, too blind her worth to know
    And worship, called her Left Arm wantonly),
Was made, full well I know, for only thee: 
    Nor could I carve or paint the glorious show
    Of that fair face:  to life thou needs must go,
    To gain the favour thou dost crave of me. 
If like the sun each star of heaven outshining,
    She conquers and outsoars our soaring thought,
    This bids thee rate her worth at its real price. 
Therefore to satisfy thy ceaseless pining,
    Once more in heaven hath God her beauty wrought: 
    God and not I can people Paradise.

XI.

TO GIORGIO VASARI.

ON THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS.

Se con lo stile.

With pencil and with palette hitherto
    You made your art high Nature’s paragon;
    Nay more, from Nature her own prize you won,
    Making what she made fair more fair to view. 
Now that your learned hand with labour new
    Of pen and ink a worthier work hath done,
    What erst you lacked, what still remained her own,