ove, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Else should we still to transient loves be bound;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond
Unto the Love of Loves that never dies.
Nay, things that die, cannot assuage the thirst
Of souls undying; nor Eternity
Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth.
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst:
This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high
Our friends on earth--higher in heaven through death.

LIII.

_CELESTIAL AND EARTHLY LOVE._

_Non e sempre di colpa._

Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:
If it be love of loveliness divine,
It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
For rays of God's own grace to enter in.
Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win
Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline;
'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine
Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.
The love of that whereof I speak, ascends:
Woman is different far; the love of her
But ill befits a heart all manly wise.
The one love soars, the other downward tends;
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,
And still his arrow at base quarry flies.

LIV.

_LOVE LIFTS TO GOD._

_Veggio nel tuo bel viso._

From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord,
That which no mortal tongue can rightly say;
The soul, imprisoned in her house of clay,
Holpen by thee to God hath often soared:
And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde
Attribute what their grosser wills obey,
Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,
This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.
Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth,
Resemble for the soul that rightly sees,
That source of bliss divine which gave us birth:
Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances
Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,
I rise to God and make death sweet by thee.

LV.

_LOVE'S ENTREATY._

_Tu sa' ch' i' so, Signor mie._

Thou knowest, love, I know that thou dost know
That I am here more near to thee to be,
And knowest that I know thou knowest me:
What means it then that we are sundered so?
If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,
If it is real, this sweet expectancy,
Break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee;
For pain in prison pent hath double woe.
Because in thee I love, O my loved lord,