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The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Edited with Preface and Notes by William M. Rossetti: Revised and Enlarged Edition

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GUIDO ORLANDI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI

Madrigal

In answer to the foregoing Sonnet

If thou hadst offered, friend, to blessed Mary
A pious voluntary,
As thus: “Fair rose, in holy garden set”:
Thou then hadst found a true similitude:
Because all truth and good
Are hers, who was the mansion and the gate
Wherein abode our High Salvation,
Conceived in her, a Son,
Even by the angel's greeting whom she met.
Be thou assured that if one cry to her,
Confessing, “I did err,”
For death she gives him life; for she is great.
Ah! how mayst thou be counselled to implead
With God thine own misdeed,
And not another's? Ponder what thou art;
And humbly lay to heart
That Publican who wept his proper need.
The Lesser Brethren cherish the divine
Scripture and church-doctrine;
Being appointed keepers of the faith
Whose preaching succoureth:
For what they preach is our best medicine.