Love, since it is thy will that I return
'Neath her usurped control
Who is thou know'st how beautiful and proud;
Enlighten thou her heart, so bidding burn
Thy flame within her soul
That she rejoice not when my cry is loud.
Be thou but once endowed
With sense of the new peace, and of this fire,
And of the scorn wherewith I am despised,
And wherefore death is my most fierce desire;
And then thou'lt be apprised
Of all. So if thou slay me afterward,
Anguish unburthened shall make death less hard.
O Lord, thou knowest very certainly
That thou didst make me apt
To serve thee. But I was not wounded yet,
When under heaven I beheld openly
The face which thus hath rapt
My soul. Then all my spirits ran elate
Upon her will to wait.
And she, the peerless one who o'er all worth
Is still her proper beauty's worshiper.
- ↑ This poem seems probably referable to the time during which Beatrice denied her salutation to Dante. (See the Vita Nuova, at page 41 et seq.)
