Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond,
If Love with one blow and one golden wand
Have power both smitten breasts to pierce and thrill;
If each the other love, himself forgoing,
With such delight, such savour, and so well,
That both to one sole end their wills combine;
If thousands of these thoughts, all thought outgoing,
Fail the least part of their firm love to tell:
Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine?

XXXIII.

FIRST READING.

_A PRAYER TO NATURE._

AMOR REDIVIVUS.

_Perche tuo gran bellezze._

That thy great beauty on our earth may be
Shrined in a lady softer and more kind,
I call on nature to collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,
And save them to restore the radiancy
Of thy bright face in some fair form designed
By heaven; and may Love ever bear in mind
To mould her heart of grace and courtesy.
I call on nature too to keep my sighs,
My scattered tears to take and recombine,
And give to him who loves that fair again:
More happy he perchance shall move those eyes
To mercy by the griefs wherewith I pine,
Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!

XXXIII.

SECOND READING.

_A PRAYER TO NATURE._

AMOR REDIVIVUS.

_Sol perche tue bellezze._

If only that thy beauties here may be
Deathless through Time that rends the wreaths he twined,
I trust that Nature will collect and bind
All those delights the slow years steal from thee,
And keep them for a birth more happily
Born under better auspices, refined
Into a heavenly form of nobler mind,
And dowered with all thine angel purity.
Ah me! and may heaven also keep my sighs,
My scattered tears preserve and reunite,
And give to him who loves that fair again!
More happy he perchance shall move those eyes
To mercy by the griefs my manhood blight,
Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!

XXXIV.

_LOVE'S FURNACE._

_Si amico al freddo sasso._

So friendly is the fire to flinty stone,
That, struck therefrom and kindled to a blaze,
It burns the stone, and from the ash doth raise
What lives thenceforward binding stones in one:
Kiln-hardened this resists both frost and sun,
Acquiring higher worth for endless days--
As the purged soul from hell returns with praise,
Amid the heavenly host to take her throne.
E'en so the fire struck from my soul, that lay