Sonnet XXXVIII
SONNET XXXVIII.
L' oro e le perle, e i fior vermigli e i bianchi.
HE INVEIGHS AGAINST LAURA'S MIRROR, BECAUSE IT MAKES HER FORGET HIM.
Those golden tresses, teeth of pearly white,Those cheeks' fair roses blooming to decay,Do in their beauty to my soul conveyThe poison'd arrows from my aching sight.Thus sad and briefly must my days take flight,For life with woe not long on earth will stay;But more I blame that mirror's flattering sway,Which thou hast wearied with thy self-delight.Its power my bosom's sovereign too hath still'd,Who pray'd thee in my suit—now he is mute,Since thou art captured by thyself alone:Death's seeds it hath within my heart instill'd,For Lethe's stream its form doth constitute,And makes thee lose each image but thine own.
Wollaston. The gold and pearls, the lily and the roseWhich weak and dry in winter wont to be,Are rank and poisonous arrow-shafts to me,As my sore-stricken bosom aptly shows:Thus all my days now sadly shortly close,For seldom with great grief long years agree;But in that fatal glass most blame I see,That weary with your oft self-liking grows.[Pg 48]It on my lord placed silence, when my suitHe would have urged, but, seeing your desireEnd in yourself alone, he soon was mute.'Twas fashion'd in hell's wave and o'er its fire,And tinted in eternal Lethe: thenceThe spring and secret of my death commence.
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