Annus Amoris :: :: University of Virginia Library

I sing of love that has been sung before,
I tell the oldest tale of all the world;
But new or old, I sing yet more and more,
For passion's force within the heart once hurled,
Can but be stayed by passion's Potentate,
Nor can he his own innocents destroy.
And while I feel of love the sweetness great,
I nurse the pain as an impatient boy
The future, knowing not what grief must be:
Thus love exists by interchange of pain
With painful bliss, for both are given to me;
Love changing bliss to woe, and then again
Love's woe to bliss is changed, until at last
Love's passion conquereth, and pain is past.