I wrote
this at my lodgings in the city, not, as usual, surrounded by
my books. If, therefore, there be anything in this letter
which either fails to give pleasure, or which frustrates
expectation, it shall be compensated by a more elaborate
composition as soon as I return to the dwelling of the muses.1
--London, March 26, I625.
1 i.e. Cambridge.
Appendix: Translations of the Italian Poems
By George MacDonald (I876).
I.
O lady fair, whose honoured name doth grace
Green vale and noble ford of Rheno's stream--
Of all worth void the man I surely deem
Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace,
When softly self-revealed in outer space 5
By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem,
And gifts--Love's bow and shafts in their esteem
Who tend the flowers one day shall crown thy race.
When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,--
A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard-- 10
The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep,
Who knows himself unworthy thy regard.
Grace from above alone him help can bring,
That passion in his heart strike not too deep.
II.
As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare,
Useth to go the little shepherd maid,
Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displaced,
Not thriving in unwonted soil and air,
Far from its native springtime's genial care; 5
So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed
Of a strange speech to wake new flower and blade,
While I of thee, in scorn so debonair,
Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost-
Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain.
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