fate so blest,
    And her who bade hope beam
    Upon my soul; for till then burthensome
    Was life itself become: 
    But now, elate with touch of self-esteem,
    High thoughts and sweet within that heart arise,
    Of which the warders are those beauteous eyes.

    No joy so exquisite
    Did Love or fickle Fortune ere devise,
    In partial mood, for favour’d votaries,
    But I would barter it
    For one dear glance of those angelic eyes,
    Whence springs my peace as from its living root. 
    O vivid lustre! of power absolute
    O’er all my being—­source of that delight,
    By which consumed I sink, a willing prey. 
    As fades each lesser ray
    Before your splendour more intense and bright,
    So to my raptured heart,
    When your surpassing sweetness you impart,
    No other thought of feeling may remain
    Where you, with Love himself, despotic reign.

    All sweet emotions e’er
    By happy lovers felt in every clime,
    Together all, may not with mine compare,
    When, as from time to time,
    I catch from that dark radiance rich and deep
    A ray in which, disporting, Love is seen;
    And I believe that from my cradled sleep,
    By Heaven provided this resource hath been,
    ’Gainst adverse fortune, and my nature frail. 
    Wrong’d am I by that veil,
    And the fair hand which oft the light eclipse,
    That all my bliss hath wrought;
    And whence the passion struggling on my lips,
    Both day and night, to vent the breast o’erfraught,
    Still varying as I read her varying thought.

    For that (with pain I find)
    Not Nature’s poor endowments may alone
    Render me worthy of a look so kind,
    I strive to raise my mind
    To match with the exalted hopes I own,
    And fires, though all engrossing, pure as mine. 
    If prone to good, averse to all things base,
    Contemner of what worldlings covet most,
    I may become by long self-discipline. 
    Haply this humble boast
    May win me in her fair esteem a place;
    For sure the end and aim
    Of all my tears, my sorrowing heart’s sole claim,
    Were the soft trembling of relenting eyes,
    The generous lover’s last, best, dearest prize.

    My lay, thy sister-song is gone before. 
    And now another in my teeming brain
    Prepares itself:  whence I resume the strain.

    DACRE.

CANZONE X.

Poiche per mio destino.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA’S EYES:  IN THEM HE FINDS EVERY GOOD, AND HE CAN NEVER CEASE TO PRAISE THEM.

      Since then by destiny
    I am compell’d to sing the strong desire,
    Which here condemns me ceaselessly to sigh,
    May Love, whose quenchless fire
    Excites me, be my guide and