"What light is here, in what new beauty drest?"
They said among themselves; "for none has seen
Within this age come wandering such a queen
From darkened earth into immortal rest."
And she, contented with her new-found bliss,
Ranks with the purest in that 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 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 Petrarch withdraws from the world, and they seem
like voices from a cloister, growing more and more solemn till the door
is closed. This is one of the 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 that 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 is this concluding line! 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 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, but literature is still
fragrant with her name. An impression which has endured