Above the ruin of God’s holy place,    Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood,    Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food,    Gave not, nor folded when they cried,…

    It may be for the world of weeds and tares    And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s rose    That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows    One from…

   I fancied, while you stood conversing there,    Superb, in every attitude a queen,    Her ermine thus Boadicea bare,    So moved amid the multitude Faustine.    My life, whose whole religion…

    Clouds rosy-tinted in the setting sun,    Depths of the azure eastern sky between,    Plains where the poplar-bordered highways run,    Patched with a hundred tints of brown and green,…

    Like as a dryad, from her native bole    Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge,    To a slow river at whose silent verge    Tall poplars tremble and…

   Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),    Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue    Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,    Now that the cream has…

  * A paraphrase of Petrarca, ‘Quando fra l’altre donne . . .’     When among creatures fair of countenance    Love comes enformed in such proud character,    So far…

   I have sought Happiness, but it has been    A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,    And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit    More fair of outward hue than…

    A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued,    With palms extent for amorous charity    And eyes incensed with love for all they see,    A wonder more to be adored…

    Oh, love of woman, you are known to be    A passion sent to plague the hearts of men;    For every one you bring felicity    Bringing rebuffs and wretchedness…