Ben posson gli occhi miei, presso e lontano.

WELL can mine eyes, afar or near, behold
How shines the light of thy fair countenance;
But when I turn my steps to follow thee,

Oft do I seek in vain thy beauteous trace.
The soul, the sound and perfect intellect,
Ascends more freely through the eyes, to scan
Thy lofty beauty; but the greatest love
Yields not such privilege to human frame,
Heavy and mortal; so that, unpossess'd
Of wings, it ill pursues an angel's flight,
And in the view alone its glory is.

Oh, if in Heaven thou hast power as here on earth,
Convert this frame into one only eye,

That I be wholly blest in viewing thee.

S'un casto amor, s' una pietà superna.

Ir a chaste love, exalted piety,

If equal fortune between two who love,

Whose every joy and sorrow are the same,
One spirit only governing two hearts,—

If one soul in two bodies made eterne,

Raising them both to Heaven on equal wings,—
If the same flame, one undivided ray,
Shine forth in each, from inward unity,-

If mutual love, for neither's self reserved,
Desiring only the return of love,—

If that which one desires the other swift

Anticipates, impelled by an unconscious power,Are signs of an indissoluble faith,

Shall aught have power to loosen such a bond?

Beati voi, che su nel ciel godete.

O BLESSED ye who find in Heaven the joy,
The recompense of tears Earth cannot yield!
Tell me, has Love still power over you,

Or are ye free'd by death from his constraint?
The' eternal rest to which we shall return,
When time has ceased to be, is a pure love,
Deprived of envy, loosed from sorrowing.
Then is my greatest burden still to live,
If whilst I love such sorrows must be mine.

If Heaven's indeed the friend of those who love,
The world their cruel and ungrateful foe,

Oh, wherefore was I born, with such a love?
To live long years? "T is this appalleth me:
Few are too long for him who serveth well.

Già piansi e sospirai, misero, tanto.

So much, alas! have I already wept
And mourn'd, I thought that all my grief
Had sigh'd itself away, or pass'd in tears.
But death still nourishes the root and veins
With bitter waters from the fount of woe,
Renewing the soul's heaviness and pain.
Then let another grief, another pen,
Another tongue distinguish in one point
A twofold bitterest regret for you.

Thy love, my brother, and the thought of thee
Our common parent, weigh upon my heart,
Nor do I know my greater misery.

Whilst busy memory pictures forth the one,
Another love, betray'd in my pale looks,
Graves livingly the other on my soul.
'Tis true that, since to the serene abode

Ye are return'd (as Love doth whisper me),

I ought to still the grief that fills my breast.
Unjust is grief, that welleth in the heart,
For those who bear their harvest of good deeds
To Heaven, released from all earth's crooked ways.
Yet cruel were the man that should not weep,
When he may never here behold again

Him who first gave him being, nourishment.
Our sufferings are more or less severe
In just proportion to our sense of pain,
And thou, O Lord, dost know how weak I am.
But if the soul to reason yield consent,
So cruel the restraint that checks my tears,
That the attempt but makes me suffer more.
And if the thought in which I steep my soul
Did not assure me, that thou now canst smile
Upon the death thou'st feared in this world,
I had no comfort: but the painful stroke
Is temper'd by a firm abiding faith,
That he who lives aright finds rest in Heaven.
The infirmities of flesh so weigh upon
Our intellect, that death more sorrow brings,
The more with false persuasion sense prevails.