Cease thy accustomed strain, my mournful lute; New music find, fit for my lot forlorn; Henceforth be Wrath and Grief resounded, torn The strings that anciently did Love salute, Not on my own weak wing irresolute But on Love's plumes I trusted to be borne, Chanting him far as that remotest bourne Whence strength Herculean reft Hesperian fruit. To such ambition was my spirit wrought By gracious guerdon Love came offering When free in air my thought was bold to range: But otherwhere now dwells another's thought, And Wrath has plucked Love's feather from my wing, And hope, style, theme, I all alike must change. This, however, is not a point at which continuance is possible, the mind must go either backward or forward. The lover for a time persuades himself that he has broken his mistress's yoke, and that his infatuation is entirely a thing of the past. But the poet, like the lady, protests too much:-- X If Love was miser of my liberty, Lo, Scorn is bounteous and benevolent, Such scope permitting, that, my fetter rent, Not lengthened by my hand, I wander free. The eyes that yielded tears continually Have now with Lethe's drops my fire besprent, And more behold, Illusion's glamour spent, Than fabled Argus with his century. The tyrant of my spirit, left forlorn As vassal thoughts forsake him, doth remove, And back unto her throne is Reason borne, And I my metamorphosis approve, And, old strains tuning to new keys, of Scorn Will sing as anciently I sang of Love. Several solutions of this situation are conceivable. Tansillo's is that which was perhaps that most likely in the case of an emotional nature, where the feelings are more powerful than the will. He simply surrenders at discretion, retracts everything disparaging that he has said of the lady (taking care, however, not to burn the peccant verses, which are much too good to be lightly parted with), and professes himself her humble slave upon her own terms:-- XI All bitter words I spoke of you while yet My heart was sore, and every virgin scroll Blackened with ire, now past from my control, These would I now recall; for 'tis most fit My style should change, now Reason doth reknit, Ties Passion sundered, and again make whole; Be then Oblivion's prey whate'er my soul Hath wrongly of thee thought, spoke, sung, or writ. Not, Lady, that impeachment of thy fame With tongue or pen I ever did design; But that, if unto these shall reach my name, Ages to come may study in my line How year by year more streamed and towered my flame, And how I living was and dying thine.