Who see men wandering

Naked, o'er hills and fens,

Men from whose presence vice has fled afar;
And you your garments throw o'er dregs of earth.

Before the miser's face pure Virtue stands,

Who still invites her enemies to peace;
A polished lure she holds,

To entice him to her; but it little serves;
For still he shuns the bait ;

Then after various turns, and many a call,
Such her concern for him, she throws the food;
But close he keeps his wings;

And if at length he comes, 'tis when she is gone,
So much he seems annoyed.

How gifts may be conferred, and yet not bring
Praise to the benefactor,

I wish that all should hear.

Some by delay, some by a vain parade,

Some by a sour brow,

Subvert the gift, by selling it so dear,

That he alone who buys can know the cost.

Ask you, if gifts can wound?

Ay, so that the receiver

Will after think refusal is less bitter:

Thus does the miser wound himself and others.

Ladies, to you I have unveiled one limb

Of a vile worthless race who court your love,
That they may meet your scorn;

But more deformed is that which is concealed,
Wherefore too foul to tell.

In every one is gathered every vice;

For concord is confounded in the world.

Love's verdant branches spring

From blissful root, and other bliss attract,

Like in degree of worth.

Hear now at what conclusion I arrive;

Never let her believe,

Who beauty deems a good,

That she is loved by persons such as these;

If beauty we account

Among our ills, believe it then she may,
When brutal appetite shall love be called.
Perish the lady who

Her beauty shall divorce

From natural goodness, and through such a cause,
And out of reason's garden trusts in Love.

My Song, not far from here a lady dwells,
A native of our land,

Fair, courteous, and discreet,

Invoked by all, and yet divulged to none:
When, giving her a name,

We call on Vanna, Bianca, or Cortese ;
To her pursue thy way, modest and veiled;
First stay thy course with her,

To her first, undisguised,

Show what thou art and wherefore sent by me,
Then journey on wherever she commands.

CANZONE XIII.

O Patria degna di trionfal fama.

LAND of my fathers, famed for glorious deeds,
Parent of valiant sons,

Great is thy sister's woe, far greater thine.
He of thy sons who loves thee faithfully,
Hearing the deeds of guilt

In thee committed, feels both grief and shame.
Alas! how prompt the wicked in thee are
To flock together and conspire thy death;
With dark distorted eye,

Presenting to thy people false for true!

Lift up the sinking hearts, and fire their blood;
Upon the traitor let

Thy judgment fall; so that in thee, with praise,

That grace may dwell in peace, which scorns thee now, And is the nest and fountain of all good.

Happy thou reignedst in those halcyon days
When all thy sons desired

The virtues should be pillars of thy state.
Of praise the parent, and of health the abode,
With pure united faith,

And with the seven ladies thou wert blessed.
Stript of such ornaments, I see thee now
Clothed with sorrow, and with vices filled;

Exiled the true Fabricii.

O proud, and vile, the enemy of peace,

O Faction's mirror, how art thou dishonoured,
Since thou art joined with Mars!

The loyal thou to Antinora doomest

Who follows not the widowed lily's spear;

And those who love thee most thou treatest worst.

Thin the malignant roots which waste thy soil;

No pity show those sons

Who have polluted and despoiled thy flower;
Will, that the virtues should be conquerors;
So that the faith now hid

May rise again, with Justice sword in hand,
Steered by the beacons which Justinian gave,
And thy unjust, ferocious, fiery laws

With sound discretion mend;

So that their praise be sung in earth and heaven.
Then with thy honours and with wealth enrich
Those sons who prize thee most;

Nor on the undeserving heap thy gifts.

So that fair Prudence and her sisters may
All dwell with thee; nor thou 'gainst them rebel.

Serene and glorious, by the influence blest
Of every heavenly sphere,

If such thy conduct, thou shalt honoured reign;
And then thy noble name, now ill applied,
Florence, shall well be given.

Soon as with mutual love thou art adorned,
Happy the soul that shall be born in thee!

All power and praise thou shalt deserve, and be
The ensign of the world.

But if thy vessel's pilot be not changed,

Still mightier tempests and a stormy death

Expect to be thy lot,

And all thy course to be with wailing filled.

Choose then and judge, whether fraternal peace

Be best, or to remain a ravenous wolf.

My Song, now go thy way, severe and bold,
For Love is still thy guide;

Enter my city, o'er whose woes I mourn;

And thou shalt find some good men there, whose lamp No brightness sends abroad;

But vilely lost they and their virtues lie.

Exclaim Arise, for you my trumpet sounds;
Arise, take arms, raise up your abject land,
For wretchedly she lives;

And Crassus, Simon Magus, Capaneus,

Aglauro, and the treacherous Greek devour her,
And Mahomet the blind

Who rules proud Pharaoh's and Jugurtha's course.
Then turn, and move her just ones with thy prayer,
So that her empire rise for evermore.

SESTINA I.

Al poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d'ombra.

Ar the short day, alas! I am arrived,

Broad is night's shade, and white are all the hills,
And vanished is the colour of the herb;

Yet is my love unchanged, and still is green,
So is it rooted in the cold hard stone
Which speaks and hears, as if it were a lady.

So cold and flinty is this youthful lady,

Who rests like snow congealed beneath the shade;
For she no more is moved than is the stone,
By the sweet season which revives the hills,
Changing again their hue from white to green,
And robing them in flowers and the herb.

When with a garland crowned of flowering herbs,
From memory she draws every other lady;
For crisped and mingled are the gold and green
So beauteously, that Love flies to their shade;
And me he fetters amid gentle hills,
More firmly than a tower of hardest stone.

Her beauties far exceed each precious stone,
And wounds from her defy the healing herb;
Hence have I fled amain o'er plains and hills,
To save me, and escape from this fair lady;
But 'gainst her brightness nothing yields a shade,
Nor hill, nor wall, nor trees of leafy green.

Once I beheld her clad in robes of green,
So beautiful she might have warmed a stone,

With love, such as I bear her very shade;
And in a mead adorned with brightest herb
I woo'd her, as a love-inspired lady,

Where closed around stood loftiest alpine hills.

But sooner shall the streams ascend the hills,
Than this fair plant, so tender and so green,
Shall feel a flame, beseeming gentle lady,
For me, who were content to sleep in stone
For all my days, or graze upon the herb,
Solely to view her garment cast a shade.

Where'er the hills send forth their deepest shade,
Clothed in her robe of green, the youthful lady
Dispels it, like a gem among the herb.

SESTINA II.

Amor mi mena tal fiata all'ombra.

LOVE Sometimes leads me to enjoy the shade
Of ladies, on whose necks are beauteous hills,
Fairer than whitest flower that decks the herb;
And one there is, arrayed in robes of green,

Who warms my heart like light from precious stone,
And fairer seems than every other maid.

When mine eye gazes on this gentle maid,

Before whose splendour vanishes all shade,
Her light so wounds my heart it turns to stone;
And griefs oppress me heavier than the hills.
Then I revive, and am in love more green
Than verdant Spring, or leaf, or goodliest herb.

I ween no power was ever found in herb

So healing as the virtue of this maid,

Who steals my heart, yet leaves the life-cords green;
When she restores it, I am as a shade,
Lifeless, and cold, and barren as the hills
Of loftiest summit, and of driest stone.

A heart I had as hard as any stone

When first I saw her, like the budding herb