Part 2 (2/2)

Envious you are, and proud, and foes to heaven; Love of your neighbour still you loathe and hate, And only seek what must your ruin be.

If to Pistoja Dante's curse was given, Bear that in mind! Enough! But if you prate Praises of Florence, 'tis to wheedle me.

A priceless jewel she: Doubtless: but this you cannot understand: For pigmy virtue grasps not aught so grand.

VII.

_TO LUIGI DEL RICCIO._

_Nel dolce d' una._

It happens that the sweet unfathomed sea Of seeming courtesy sometimes doth hide Offence to life and honour. This descried, I hold less dear the health restored to me.

He who lends wings of hope, while secretly He spreads a traitorous snare by the wayside, Hath dulled the flame of love, and mortified Friends.h.i.+p where friends.h.i.+p burns most fervently.

Keep then, my dear Luigi, clear and pure That ancient love to which my life I owe, That neither wind nor storm its calm may mar.

For wrath and pain our grat.i.tude obscure; And if the truest truth of love I know, One pang outweighs a thousand pleasures far.

VIII.

TO LUIGI DEL RICCIO,

_AFTER THE DEATH OF CECCHINO BRACCI._

_A pena prima._

Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes Which to your living eyes were life and light, When closed at last in death's injurious night He opened them on G.o.d in Paradise.

I know it and I weep, too late made wise: Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite Robbed my desire of that supreme delight, Which in your better memory never dies.

Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine To make unique Cecchino smile in stone For ever, now that earth hath made him dim, If the beloved within the lover s.h.i.+ne, Since art without him cannot work alone, You must I carve to tell the world of him.

IX.

_THANKS FOR A GIFT._

_Al zucchero, alla mula._

The sugar, candles, and the saddled mule, Together with your cask of malvoisie, So far exceed all my necessity That Michael and not I my debt must rule, In such a gla.s.sy calm the breezes fool My sinking sails, so that amid the sea My bark hath missed her way, and seems to be A wisp of straw whirled on a weltering pool.

To yield thee gift for gift and grace for grace, For food and drink and carriage to and fro, For all my need in every time and place, O my dear lord, matched with the much I owe, All that I am were no real recompense: Paying a debt is not munificence.

X.

TO GANDOLFO PORRINO.

_ON HIS MISTRESS FAUSTINA MANCINA._

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