III

YOUTH AND AGE

On give me back the days when loose and

Το

free

my blind passion were the curb and rein,

Oh give me back the angelic face again, With which all virtue buried seems to be!

Oh give my panting footsteps back to me, That are in age so slow and fraught with pain,

And fire and moisture in the heart and brain,

If thou wouldst have me burn and weep for thee!

If it be true thou livest alone, Amor,

On the sweet - bitter tears of human hearts,

In an old man thou canst not wake desire;

Souls that have almost reached the other shore

Of a diviner love should feel the darts, And be as tinder to a holier fire.

IV

OLD AGE

VI

TO VITTORIA COLONNA

VII

DANTE

WHAT should be said of him cannot be said;

By too great splendor is his name attended;

THE NATURE OF LOVE

BY GUIDO GUINIZELLI

To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly,

Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.

This man descended to the doomed and dead

For our instruction; then to God ascended;

Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,

Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.

Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well

That the most perfect most of grief shall

high,

Nor before love the noble heart was made. Soon as the sun's broad flame

Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air ;

Yet was not till he came :

So love springs up in noble breasts, and there

Has its appointed space,

As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted place.

Kindles in noble heart the fire of love,
As hidden virtue in the precious stone :
This virtue comes not from the stars
above,

Till round it the ennobling sun has shone;
But when his powerful blaze

Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars impart

Strange virtue in their rays;

And thus when Nature doth create the

From Varaca's rocky wall,

From the rock of Varaca unrolled, The snow came and covered all,

And the green meadow was cold.

O Stork, our garden with snow
Was hidden away and lost,
And the rose-trees that in it grow
Were withered by snow and frost.

FROM THE LATIN

VIRGIL'S FIRST ECLOGUE

MELIBOEUS.

TITYRUS, thou in the shade of a spreading beech tree reclining

Meditatest, with slender pipe, the Muse of the woodlands.

We our country's bounds and pleasant pastures relinquish,

Often the sinister crow from the hollow ilex predicted.

Nevertheless, who this god may be, O Tityrus, tell me.

TITYRUS.

O Melibaus, the city that they call Rome, I imagined,

Foolish I! to be like this of ours, where often we shepherds

Wonted are to drive down of our ewes the delicate offspring.

Thus whelps like unto dogs had I known, and kids to their mothers,

Thus to compare great things with small had I been accustomed.

But this among other cities its head as far hath exalted

As the cypresses do among the lissome viburnums.

MELIBUS.

in the shadow,

hath possessed thee?

TITYRUS.

Liberty, which, though late, looked upon me in my inertness,

After the time when my beard fell whiter from me in shaving,

Yet she looked upon me, and came to me after a long while,

Since Amaryllis possesses and Galatea hath left me.

For I will even confess that while Galatea possessed me

Neither care of my flock nor hope of liberty was there.

Though from my wattled folds there went forth many a victim,

And the unctuous cheese was pressed for the city ungrateful,

Never did my right hand return home heavy with money.

MELIBEUS.

I have wondered why sad thou invokedst the gods, Amaryllis,

And for whom thou didst suffer the apples to hang on the branches! Tityrus hence was absent! Thee, Tityrus, even the pine trees, Thee the very fountains, the very copses were calling.