Works

Ov' ' la fronte che con picciol cenno.

HE ENUMERATES AND EULOGISES THE GRACES OF LAURA.


Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led
My raptured heart at will, now here, now there?...

Quanta invidia ti porto, avara terra.

HE ENVIES EARTH, HEAVEN, AND DEATH THEIR POSSESSION OF HIS TREASURE.


O earth, whose clay-cold mantle shrouds that face,...

Valle che d' lamenti miei se' piena.

ON HIS RETURN TO VAUCLUSE AFTER LAURA'S DEATH.


Valley, which long hast echoed with my cries;
Stream, which my flowing tears have often fed;...

Levommi il mio pensier in parte ov' era.

SOARING IN IMAGINATION TO HEAVEN, HE MEETS LAURA, AND IS HAPPY.


Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays...

Io pensava assai destro esser sull' ale.

UNWORTHY TO HAVE LOOKED UPON HER, HE IS STILL MORE SO TO ATTEMPT HER PRAISES.


I thought me apt and firm of wing to rise...

Amor che meco al buon tempo ti stavi.

HE VENTS HIS SORROW TO ALL WHO WITNESSED HIS FORMER FELICITY.


Love, that in happier days wouldst meet me here...

Mentre che 'l cor dagli amorosi vermi.

HAD SHE NOT DIED SO EARLY, HE WOULD HAVE LEARNED TO PRAISE HER MORE WORTHILY.


While on my heart the worms consuming prey'd...

Anima bella, da quel nodo sciolta.

HE PRAYS LAURA TO LOOK DOWN UPON HIM FROM HEAVEN.


Bright spirit, from those earthly bonds released,
The loveliest ever wove in Nature's loom,...

Quel sol che mi mostrava il cammin destro.

LOVE AND HE SEEK LAURA, BUT FIND NO TRACES OF HER EXCEPT IN THE SKY.


That sun, which ever signall'd the right road,...

Voi, ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono.

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION


Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed...

ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES, BY MOONLIGHT.


Sweet Moon! if, like Crotona's sage,[1]
By any spell my hand could dare
To make thy disk its ample page,...

To lose thee, sweeter than to gain
All other hearts I knew.
'T is true the drought is destitute,
But then I had the dew!

The Caspian has its realms of sand,
Its other realm of sea;...

Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
Life of the Muses' day, their morning star!
If works, not th' author's, their own grace should look,
Whose poems would not wish to be your book?...

Of all who hail thy presence as the morning,
Of all to whom thine absence is the night,
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun, of all who, weeping, bless thee...

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words"--denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain...

Mother says, "Be in no hurry,
Marriage oft means care and worry."

Auntie says, with manner grave,
"Wife is synonym for slave."

Father asks, in tones commanding,...

Mary, you know I've no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn't formed your feature,...

1.
How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?...

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed - a lovely one -
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,...

Friend, if you thinke my Papers may supplie
You, with some strange omitted Noueltie,
Which others Letters yet haue left vntould,
You take me off, before I can take hould
Of you at all; I put not thus to Sea,...