most praise,
    Great master in Love’s art, his style, as new
    As sweet, honours his country:  next, a few
    Whom Love did lightly wound:  both Peters made
    Two:  one, the less Arnaldo:  some have had
    A harder war; both the Rimbaldos, th’ one
    Sung Beatrice, though her quality was known
    Too much above his reach in Montferrat. 
    Alvernia’s old Piero, and Girault: 
    Folchetto, who from Genoa was estranged
    And call’d Marsilian, he wisely changed
    His name, his state, his country, and did gain
    In all:  Jeffray made haste to catch his bane
    With sails and oars:  Guilliam, too, sweetly sung
    That pleasing art, was cause he died so young. 
    Amarig, Bernard, Hugo, and Anselm
    Were there, with thousands more, whose tongues were helm,
    Shield, sword, and spear, all their offensive arms,
    And their defensive to prevent their harms. 
    From those I turn’d, comparing my own woe,
    To view my country-folks; and there might know
    The good Tomasso, who did once adorn
    Bologna, now Messina holds his urn. 
    Ah, vanish’d joys!  Ah, life too full of bane! 
    How wert thou from mine eyes so quickly ta’en! 
    Since without thee nothing is in my power
    To do, where art thou from me at this hour? 
    What is our life?  If aught it bring of ease,
    A sick man’s dream, a fable told to please. 
    Some few there from the common road did stray;
    Laelius and Socrates, with whom I may
    A longer progress take:  Oh, what a pair
    Of dear esteemed friends to me they were! 
    ’Tis not my verse, nor prose, may reach thieir praise;
    Neither of these can naked virtue raise
    Above her own true place:  with them I have
    Reach’d many heights; one yoke of learning gave
    Laws to our steps, to them my fester’d wound
    I oft have show’d; no time or place I found
    To part from them; and hope, and wish we may
    Be undivided till my breath decay: 
    With them I used (too early) to adorn
    My head with th’ honour’d branches, only worn
    For her dear sake I did so deeply love,
    Who fill’d my thoughts; but ah!  I daily prove,
    No fruit nor leaves from thence can gather’d be: 
    The root hath sharp and bitter been to me. 
    For this I was accustomed much to vex,
    But I have seen that which my anger checks: 
    (A theme for buskins, not a comic stage)
    She took the God, adored by the rage
    Of such dull fools as he had captive led: 
    But first, I’ll tell you what of us he made;
    Then, from her hand what was his own sad fate,
    Which Orpheus or Homer might relate. 
    His winged coursers o’er the ditches leapt,
    And we their way as desperately kept,
    Till he had reached where his mother reigns,
    Nor would he ever pull or turn the reins;