“No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes When perfect peace in thy fair face I found; But far within, where all is holy ground, My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies: For she was born with God in Paradise; Nor all the shows of beauty shed around This fair false world her wings to earth have bound; Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies. Nay, things that suffer death quench not the fire Of deathless spirits; nor eternity Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare. Not love but lawless impulse is desire: That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.” 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 tho’ 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.” [Sidenote: _Richard Barnfield_] Richard Barnfield, one of the Elizabethan singers (b. 1574) wrote a long poem, dedicated to “The Ladie Penelope Rich” and entitled “The Affectionate Shepheard,” which he describes as “an imitation of Virgil in the 2nd Eclogue, of Alexis.” I quote the first two stanzas:— I. “Scarce had the morning starre hid from the light Heaven’s crimson Canopie with stars bespangled, But I began to rue th’ unhappy sight Of that fair boy that had my heart intangled; Cursing the Time, the Place, the sense, the sin; I came, I saw, I view’d, I slippèd in. II. If it be sin to love a sweet-fac’d Boy, (Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels Dangle adown his lovely cheekes with joye When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels) If it be sin to love a lovely Lad, Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad.” [Sidenote: _Barnfield’s Sonnets_] These stanzas, and the following three sonnets (also by Barnfield) from a series addressed to a youth, give a fair sample of a considerable class of Elizabethan verses, in which classic conceits were mingled with a certain amount of real feeling:— SONNET IV.