Page:The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Siddal ed.djvu/79

&#160;&#160;&#160;The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Aldus recto.png These words I laid up in my mind with great gladness, conceiving to take them as my commencement. Wherefore, having returned to the city I spake of, and considered thereof during certain days, I began a poem with this beginning, constructed in the mode which will be seen below in its division. The poem begins here:—

that have intelligence in love,

Of mine own lady I would speak with you;

Not that I hope to count her praises through,

But telling what I may, to ease my mind.

And I declare that when I speak thereof,

Love sheds such perfect sweetness over me

That if my courage failed not, certainly

To him my listeners must be all resign'd.

Wherefore I will not speak in such large kind

That mine own speech should foil me, which were base;

But only will discourse of her high grace

In these poor words, the best that I can find,