73. ‘Poi che per mio destino’

Since through destiny

the burning passion that has forced me to sigh

for so long now forces me to speak,

Love, you who create my longing,

be my guide, and show me the road,

and let my verse match my desire:

but not so that the heart may be out of tune

through overwhelming sweetness, as I fear,

because of what I feel where none can see,

since speaking strikes and inflames me:

nor do I find this great fire in my mind lessen,

as it sometimes would,

by use of intellect, at which I tremble and fear,

rather I’m consumed by the sound of words,

as a snow man is in the sun.

At the start I thought

to find some brief repose and a truce

by speaking of my ardent desire.

This hope, setting me on fire

to talk of what I felt,

abandoned me in time, and vanished.

And yet I must follow the high theme

continuing the loving notes,

so powerful the wish that drives me on:

and reason is dead

that held the reins, so nothing can oppose this.

Show me, Love, how to speak

in such a way at least that if it reach

the ears of my sweet enemy,

it might make her the friend of pity, if not of myself.

I say that in those ages

when spirits were on fire with true honour,

some men’s efforts turned

to diverse countries,

crossing hills and waves, and searching

for things of honour, and culled its finest flower,

but now that God, and Love, and Nature

wish to set every gentle virtue

in those bright eyes, through which I live in joy,

I have no need to cross

this river or that, or change countries.

I always return to them

as to the fount of all my blessings,

and when in desire I rush towards death,

the sight of them alone brings me salvation.

As the weary steersman

at night, in a rising wind, lifts his eyes

to the stars of those two Bears near the Pole,

so, in the tempest

of Love I endure, your shining eyes

are my sign, and my only comfort.

Alas, what I glimpse of them from time to time,

as Love directs me, is still more

than what is given freely to me,

and I make what little I myself

am from their eternal rule.

I have not moved a step

without them, since I first saw them:

and I hold them as the crown of my being,

taking my own value to be worthless.

I could never imagine,

nor ever tell, the effect

that those sweet eyes have on my heart:

every other delight

of this life is so much less

and every other beauty falls far behind.

Tranquil peace, without any torment,

such as lies in the eternal Heavens

comes from their loving smile.

If I could see close to,

for only one day, how Love

governs them so sweetly,

while the spheres above ceased to move,

and think of nothing else nor of myself,

and not lose them by the blinking of an eye.

Alas, how I go desiring

what can never exist in any way,

and live in desire beyond all hope:

if only that knot

with which Love ties my tongue

whenever excess of light blinds mortal sight,

were untied, I would take courage

to speak words in so new a way

it would make those who heard them weep:

but that deep piercing

turns my wounded heart elsewhere,

so I grow pale,

and the blood vanishes who knows where,

and I am not what I was: and I see

that this is the blow with which love kills me.

Song, my pen is already weary

of this long sweet speech with you,

but not my thoughts of speaking to myself.