Page:Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him.djvu/145

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, 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.