The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

The lofty worth and lovely excellence,
Dear lady, that thou hast,
Hold me consuming in the fire of love:
That I am much afeared and wildered thence,
As who, being meanly plac'd,
Would win unto some height he dreameth of.
Yet, if it be decreed,
After the multiplying of vain thought,
By Fortune's favour he at last is brought
To his far hope, the mighty bliss indeed.

446

Thus, in considering thy loveliness,
Love maketh me afear'd,—
So high art thou, joyful, and full of good;—
And all the more, thy scorn being never less.
Yet is this comfort heard,—
That underneath the water fire doth brood,
Which thing would seem unfit
By law of nature. So may thy scorn prove
Changed at the last, through pity into love,
If favourable Fortune should permit.

Lady, though I do love past utterance,
Let it not seem amiss,
Neither rebuke thou the enamoured eyes.
Look thou thyself on thine own countenance,
From that charm unto this,
All thy perfections of sufficiencies.
So shalt thou rest assured
That thine exceeding beauty lures me on
Perforce, as by the passive magnet-stone
The needle, of its nature's self, is lured.

Certes, it was of Love's dispiteousness
That I must set my life
On thee, proud lady, who accept'st it not.
And how should I attain unto thy grace,
That falter, thus at strife
To speak to thee the thing which is my thought?
Thou, lovely as thou art,
I pray for God, when thou dost pass me by,
Look upon me: so shalt thou certify,
By my cheek's ailing, that which ails my heart.

So thoroughly my love doth tend toward
Thy love its lofty scope,
That I may never think to ease my pain;
Because the ice, when it is frozen hard,
May have no further hope
That it should ever become snow again.
But, since Love bids me bend
Unto thy seigniory,
Have pity thou on me,
That so upon thyself all grace descend.

447

II
Canzone

After Six Years' service he renounces his Lady

I Laboured these six years
For thee, thou bitter sweet;
Yea, more than it is meet
That speech should now rehearse
Or song should rhyme to thee;
But love gains never aught
From thee, by depth or length;
Unto thine eyes such strength
And calmness thou hast taught,
That I say wearily:—
“The child is most like me,
Who thinks in the clear stream
To catch the round flat moon
And draw it all a-dripping unto him,—
Who fancies he can take into his hand
The flame o'the lamp, but soon
Screams and is nigh to swoon
At the sharp heat his flesh may not withstand.”

Though it be late to learn
How sore I was possest,
Yet do I count me blest,
Because I still can spurn
This thrall which is so mean.
For when a man, once sick,
Has got his health anew,
The fever which boiled through
His veins, and made him weak,
Is as it had not been.
For all that I had seen,
Thy spirit, like thy face,
More excellently shone
Than precious crystals in an untrod place.
Go to: thy worth is but as glass, the cheat,
Which, to gaze thereupon,
Seems crystal, even as one,
But only is a cunning counterfeit.

Foiled hope has made me mad,
As one who, playing high,
Thought to grow rich thereby,
And loses what he had.
Yet I can now perceive
How true the saying is
That says: “If one turn back
Out of an evil track
Through loss which has been his,
He gains, and need not grieve.”
To me now, by your leave,
It chances as to him
Who of his purse is free
To one whose memory for such debts is dim.
Long time he speaks no word thereof, being loth:
But having asked, when he
Is answered slightingly,
Then shall he lose his patience and be wroth.

448

III
Sonnet

Of Self-seeing

If any his own foolishness might see
As he can see his fellow's foolishness,
His evil speakings could not but prove less,
For his own fault would vex him inwardly.
But, by old custom, each man deems that he
Has to himself all this world's worthiness;
And thou, perchance, in blind contentedness,
Scorn'st him, yet know'st not what I think of thee.
Wherefore I wish it were so ordered
That each of us might know the good that's his,
And also the ill,—his honour and his shame.
For oft a man has on his proper head
Such weight of sins, that, did he know but this,
He could not for his life give others blame.