Dear people, swelled in fool's wisdom
And clinging to error so fanciful,
To the skies, adorned in hosts of fair stars,
Look up - and make bright your dimlit minds! ...
In shame is man conceived, through pain is born,
And brief the time upon this earth he goes
In life inconstant, full of fears and woes.
He dies, a shadow by the sun forlorn. ...
Unequalled Virgin, the second ornament
Of the human race, whose dignity has not diminished
Her humility, nor has humility lessened her generosity of heart,
O rare Mother of her own Creator! ...
If midst Rome you wish to see Rome, pilgrim,
Tho in Rome naught of Rome might you see,
Behold the walls' ring, the theatres, temples
And ruptured pillars, to rubble all turned, ...
I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.
... Read complete poem
