Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, Nor yet hath fortune borne Me on the way to so much bliss again. Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: The grass and every shrub once more is green; The amorous birds begin, From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: Thou maiden, I a boy, Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? Or with thy beauty choose To make him blest who loves thee best of all? Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, Poor, or a cripple born, Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow With honour to our land, with pomp and power; My youth is yet in flower, And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. My lot it is to deal right royally With all the goods that fortune spreads around, For still they more abound, Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: Yet though I rank so high Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! Then stint me not, but give That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca in the Pitti Palace at Florence. It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose I have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with the celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and emptiness of content.