Contents
Love, Nature, and the lovely humble soul,
This phoenix with golden plumage
If Virgil and Homer had seen that sun
Sighing before the famous tomb
Kindly Sun, that only branch I love,
My ship, full of oblivion, sails
A pure white hind appeared to me
Just as eternal life is seeing God,
Let us stop, Love, to see our glory,
I feed my mind on such noble food,
I know the gentle breeze that clears the hills,
My hair and looks are altering day by day,
The calm breeze that comes murmuring
The heavenly breeze that breathes through
The gentle breeze loosens, and stirs in the sun,
O beautiful hand that clutches my heart
Not just that one lovely naked hand,
Love and good fortune so blessed me
The flame that burns me and destroys me
Alas, I burn, and others will not believe me:
Spirit that sees, hears, reads, speaks,
Sweet anger, sweet disdain and sweet peace,
If I ever said so, may I be held to scorn by her
I truly thought I would always spend my time
Rapid river flowing from the mountains,
The sweet hills where I left myself,
Not from Spain’s Ebro to India’s Hydaspes,
Desire drives me: Love sees and guides me,
Blessed with sleep, and content with languor,
Graces that heaven hardly bestows widely:
Three days created, my soul was in a place
Noble blood, a calm and humble life,
All day I weep: and then in the night
Once I hoped, lamenting so justly
When she’s among graceful and lovely ladies
At break of day the valley re-echoes
Where, and from what vein, did Love derive
How did my fate, or force or deceit
‘Ladies who go talking along the way,
When the sun dips his golden chariot in the sea,
If loving faith, an undeceiving heart,
I saw twelve ladies virtuously sailing,
No sparrow on a roof, or beast in a wood
Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair,
Love opened my left side with his right hand,
I sang, and now I weep, and I take no less
I wept, now I sing, that the celestial light
I had lived contented with my fate,
Anger conquered Alexander the conqueror,
What good fortune came to me, when a force
O little room that was once a refuge
Alas, Love carries me where I do not wish,
Love, I have sinned, and I know my sin,
The sea’s not so many creatures in its waves,
A royal nature, angelic intellect,
Towards the dawn when the sweet breeze
I have prayed to Love, and I pray again
That noble lord before whom there’s no use
‘Look at that hill, O weary loving heart:
Fresh, shaded, flower-filled and verdant hill,