s is
the heart of the lover prone! As the vessel that wanders o'er the
waves without an anchor, so doth Love's uncertain warfare toss
'twixt fear and hope.

The beauties of Nature are drawn upon to describe the fair maiden;
her eyes are compared to stars, her colour to lilies and snow, her
mouth to a rose, her kiss 'doth rend in sunder all the clouds of
care.'

In the flowery season I sat beneath a shady tree while the birds
sang in the groves ... and listened to my Thisbe's talk, the talk
I love and long for; and we spoke of the sweet interchange of
love, and in the doubtful balance of the mind wanton love and
chastity were wavering.

I have seen the bright green of flowers, I have seen the flower
of flowers, I have seen the rose of May; I have seen the star
that is brighter than all other, that is glorious and fair above
all other, through whom may I ever spend my life in love.

On such a theme the poet rings endless changes. The most charming is
the poem _Phyllis and Flora_. Actual landscape is not given, but
details are treated with freshness and care:

In the flowery season of the year, under a sky serene, while the
earth's lap was painted with many colours, when the messenger of
Aurora had put to flight the stars, sleep left the eyes of
Phyllis and of Flora, two maidens whose beauty answered to the
morning light. The breeze of spring was gently whispering, the
place was green and gay with grass, and in the grass itself there
flowed a living brook that played and babbled as it went. And
that the sun's heat might not harm the maidens, near the stream
there was a spreading pine, decked with leaves and spreading far
its interweaving branches, nor could the heat penetrate from
without. The maidens sat, the grass supplied the seat.... They
intend to go to Love's Paradise: at the entrance of the grove a
rivulet murmurs; the breeze is fragrant with myrrh and balsam;
they hear the music of a hundred timbrels and lutes. All the
notes of the birds resound in all their fulness; they hear the
sweet and pleasant song of the blackbird, the garrulous lark, the
turtle and the nightingale, etc.... He who stayed there would
become immortal; every tree there rejoices in its own fruit; the
ways are scented with myrrh and cinnamon and amomum; the master
could be forced out of his house.

The first to