t upper sphere,
Yet ever and anon looks back on this,
To watch for me, as if for me she stayed.
So strive my thoughts, lest that high path I miss.
I hear her call, and must not be delayed.

These odes and sonnets are all but parts of one vast symphony, leading
us through a passion strengthened by years and only purified by death,
until at last the graceful lay becomes an anthem and a _Nunc dimittis_.
In the closing sonnets he withdraws from the world, and they seem like a
voice from a cloister, growing more and move solemn till the door is
closed. This is one of the very last:--

SONNET 309.

"_Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio._"

Oft by my faithful mirror I am told,
And by my mind outworn and altered brow,
My earthly powers impaired and weakened now,--
"Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!"
Who strives with Nature's laws is over-bold,
And Time to his commandments bids us bow.
Like fire which waves have quenched, I calmly vow
In life's long dream no more my sense to fold.
And while I think, our swift existence flies,
And none can live again earth's brief career,--
Then in my deepest heart the voice replies
Of one who now has left this mortal sphere,
But walked alone through earthly destinies,
And of all women is to fame most dear.

How true this was! Who can wonder that women prize beauty, and are
intoxicated by their own fascinations, when these fragile gifts are yet
strong enough to outlast all the memories of statesmanship and war? Next
to the immortality of genius is that which genius may confer upon the
object of its love. Laura, while she lived, was simply one of a hundred
or a thousand beautiful and gracious Italian women; she had her little
loves and aversions, joys and griefs; she cared dutifully for her
household, and embroidered the veil which Petrarch loved; her memory
appeared as fleeting and unsubstantial as that woven tissue. After five
centuries we find that no armor of that iron age was so enduring. The
kings whom she honored, the popes whom she revered, are dust, and their
memory is dust, while literature is still fragrant with her name. An
impression which has endured so long is ineffaceable; it is an earthly
immortality.

"Time is the chariot of all ages to carry men away, and beauty cannot
bribe this charioteer." Thus wrote Petrarch in his Latin essays; but his
love had access to a treasury more