So well that Love sits down there in the shade,—
Love who has shut me in among low hills
Faster than between walls of granite-stone.

She is more bright than is a precious stone;
The wound she gives may not be healed with grass:
I therefore have fled far o'er plains and hills
For refuge from so dangerous a lady;
But from her sunshine nothing can give shade,-
Not any hill, nor wall, nor summer-green.

A while ago, I saw her dressed in green,—
So fair, she might have wakened in a stone
This love which I do feel even for her shade;
And therefore, as one woos a graceful lady,
I wooed her in a field that was all grass
Girdled about with very lofty hills.

Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills
Before Love's flame in this damp wood and green
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady,
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass,
Only to see her garments cast a shade.

How dark soe'er the hills throw out their shade,
Under her summer-green the beautiful lady
Covers it, like a stone cover'd in grass.

SONNET

(D. G. Rossetti)

To the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni

My curse be on the day when first I saw

The brightness in those treacherous eyes of thine,— The hour when from my heart thou cam'st to draw My soul away, that both might fail and pine: My curse be on the skill that smooth'd each line

Of my vain songs,-the music and just law

Of art, by which it was my dear design

That the whole world should yield thee love and awe.
Yea, let me curse mine own obduracy,

Which firmly holds what doth itself confound

To wit, thy fair perverted face of scorn:

For whose sake Love is oftentimes forsworn

So that men mock at him: but most at me
Who would hold fortune's wheel and turn it round.

(D. G. Rossetti)

Cino da Pistoia

SONNET

TO DANTE ALIGHIERI

1270-1336

He interprets Dante's Dream, related in the first Sonnet of the Vita Nuova

EACH lover's longing leads him naturally

Unto his lady's heart his heart to show;

And this it is that Love would have thee know

By the strange vision which he sent to thee.
With thy heart therefore, flaming outwardly,
In humble guise he fed thy lady so,
Who long had lain in slumber, from all woe
Folded within a mantle silently.

Also, in coming, Love might not repress

His joy, to yield thee thy desire achieved,

Whence heart should unto heart true service bring.

But understanding the great lovesickness
Which in thy lady's bosom was conceived,
He pitied her, and wept in vanishing.

(D. G. Rossetti)

SONNET

TO DANTE ALIGHIERI

He conceives of some Compensation in Death
DANTE, whenever this thing happeneth,-

That Love's desire is quite bereft of Hope,
(Seeking in vain at ladies' eyes some scope
Of joy, through what the heart for ever saith,)—
I ask thee, can amends be made by Death?
Is such sad pass the last extremity?—

Or may
the Soul that never feared to die
Then in another body draw new breath?
Lo! thus it is through her who governs all
Below, that I, who entered at her door,
Now at her dreadful window must fare forth.

Yea, and I think through her it doth befall.
That even ere yet the road is traveled o'er
My bones are weary and life is nothing worth.

(D. G. Rossetti)

MADRIGAL

To his Lady Selvaggia Vergiolesi; likening his Love to a search for Gold

I AM all bent to glean the golden ore
Little by little from the river-bed;

Hoping the day to see

When Croesus shall be conquered in my store.
Therefore, still sifting where the sands are spread,
I labor patiently:

Till, thus intent on this thing and no more,-
If to a vein of silver I were led,

It scarce could gladden me.

And, seeing that no joy's so warm i' the core
As this whereby the heart is comforted
And the desire set free,—

Therefore thy bitter love is still my scope,

Lady, from whom it is my life's sore theme More painfully to sift the grains of hope Than gold out of that stream.

(D. G. Rossetti)

SONNET

To Love, in great Bitterness

O LOVE, O thou that, for my fealty,
Only in torment dost thy power employ,

Give me, for God's sake, something of thy joy,
That I
may learn what good there is in thee.
Yea, for, if thou art glad with grieving me,
Surely my very life thou shalt destroy

When thou renew'st my pain, because the joy
Must then be wept for with the misery.
He that had never sense of good, nor sight,
Esteems his ill estate but natural,

Which so is lightlier borne: his case is mine.
But, if thou wouldst uplift me for a sign,
Bidding me drain the curse and know it all,
I must a little taste its opposite.

(D. G. Rossetti)

SONNET

Death is not without but within him

THIS fairest lady, who, as well I wot,

Found entrance by her beauty to my soul,

Pierced through mine eyes my heart, which erst was

whole,

Sorely, yet makes as though she knew it not;
Nay, turns upon me now, to anger wrought;
Dealing me harshness for my pain's best dole,
And is so changed by her own wrath's control,

That I go thence, in my distracted thought
Content to die; and, mourning, cry abroad
On Death, as upon one afar from me;

But Death makes answer from within
Then, hearing her so hard at hand to be,
I do commend my spirit unto God;

my

Saying to her too, 'Ease and peace thou art.'

VANQUISHED and

SONNET

A Trance of Love

heart.

(D. G. Rossetti)

weary was my soul in me,

And my heart gasped after its much lament, When sleep at length the painful languor sent. And, as I slept (and wept incessantly),— Through the keen fixedness of memory

Which I had cherished ere my tears were spent,
I passed to a new trance of wonderment;
Wherein a visible spirit I could see,

Which caught me up, and bore me to a place
Where my most gentle lady was alone;

And still before us a fire seemed to move,
Out of the which methought there came a moan
Uttering, 'Grace, a little season, grace!

I am of one that hath the wings of Love.'

SONNET

(D. G. Rossetti)

Of the Grave of Selvaggia, on the Monte della Sambuca

I WAS upon the high and blessed mound,

And kissed, long worshiping, the stones and grass, There on the hard stones prostrate, where, alas! That pure one laid her forehead in the ground. Then were the springs of gladness sealed and bound, The day that unto Death's most bitter pass My sick heart's lady turned her feet, who was Already in her gracious life renown'd.