more near.
Thou knowest, I know thou knowest--I am here.
Would we had given our greetings long ago.
If true the hope thou hast to me revealed,
If true the plighting of a sacred troth,
Let the wall fall that stands between us both,
For griefs are doubled when they are concealed.
If, loved one,--if I only loved in thee
What thou thyself dost love,--'tis to this end
The spirit with his beloved is allied.
The things thy face inspires and teaches me
Mortality doth little comprehend.
Before we understand we must have died.

LI

Give me the time when loose the reins I flung
Upon the neck of galloping desire.
Give me the angel face that now among
The angels,--tempers Heaven with its fire.
Give the quick step that now is grown so old,
The ready tears--the blaze at thy behest,
If thou dost seek indeed, O Love! to hold
Again thy reign of terror in my breast.
If it be true that thou dost only live
Upon the sweet and bitter pains of man
Surely a weak old man small food can give
Whose years strike deeper than thine arrows can.
Upon life's farthest limit I have stood--
What folly to make fire of burnt wood.

The occasion of the following was probably some more than wonted favor
shown to him by Vittoria.

XXVI.

Great joy no less than grief doth murder men.
The thief, even at the gallows, may be killed
If, while through every vein with fear he's chilled,
Sudden reprieve do set him free again.

Thus hath this bounty from you in my pain
Through all my griefs and sufferings fiercely thrilled,
Coming from a breast with sovereign mercy filled,
And more than weeping, cleft my heart in twain.

Good news, like bad, may bring the taker death.
The heart is rent as with the sharpest knife,
Be it pressure or expansion cause the rift.
Let thy great beauty which God cherisheth
Limit my joy if it desire my life--
The unworthy dies beneath so great a gift.

XXVIII

The heart is not the life of love like mine.
The love I love thee with has none of it.
For hearts to sin and mortal thought incline
And for love's habitation are unfit.
God, when our souls were parted from Him, made
Of me an eye--of thee, splendor and light.
Even i