A youngling maid am I and full of glee, Am fain to carol in the new-blown May, Love and sweet thoughts-a-mercy, blithe and free. I go about the meads, considering The vermeil flowers and golden and the white, Roses thorn-set and lilies snowy-bright, And one and all I fare a-likening Unto his face who hath with love-liking Ta’en and will hold me ever, having aye None other wish than as his pleasures be; Whereof when one I find me that doth show, Unto my seeming, likest him, full fain I cull and kiss and talk with it amain And all my heart to it, as best I know, Discover, with its store of wish and woe; Then it with others in a wreath I lay, Bound with my hair so golden-bright of blee. Ay, and that pleasure which the eye doth prove, By nature, of the flower’s view, like delight Doth give me as I saw the very wight Who hath inflamed me of his dulcet love, And what its scent thereover and above Worketh in me, no words indeed can say; But sighs thereof bear witness true for me, The which from out my bosom day nor night Ne’er, as with other ladies, fierce and wild, Storm up; nay, thence they issue warm and mild And straight betake them to my loved one’s sight, Who, hearing, moveth of himself, delight To give me; ay, and when I’m like to say “Ah come, lest I despair,” still cometh he. Again, on the tenth day, Fiammetta sings: If love came but withouten jealousy, I know no lady born So blithe as I were, whosoe’er she be. If gladsome youthfulness In a fair lover might content a maid, Virtue and worth discreet, Valiance or gentilesse, wit and sweet speech and fashions all arrayed In pleasantness complete, Certes. I’m she for whose behoof these meet In one; for, love-o’erborne, All these in him who is my hope I see. But for that I perceive That other women are as wise as I, I tremble for affright And tending to believe The worst, in others the desire espy Of him who steals my spright;