All ye that pass along Love’s trodden way,
Pause ye awhile and say
If there be any grief like unto mine:
I pray you that you hearken a short space
Patiently, if my case
Be not a piteous marvel and a sign.
Love (never, certes, for my worthless part,
But of his own great heart,)
Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet
That oft I heard folk question as I went
What such great gladness meant:—
They spoke of it behind me in the street.
But now that fearless bearing is all gone
Which with Love’s hoarded wealth was given me;
Till I am grown to be
So poor that I have dread to think thereon.
And thus it is that I, being like as one
Who is ashamed and hides his poverty,
Without seem full of glee,
And let my heart within travail and moan.
_This poem has two principal parts; for, in the first, I mean to call
the Faithful of Love in those words of Jeremias the Prophet_, “O vos
omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte si est dolor sicut
dolor meus,” _and to pray them to stay and hear me. In the second I
tell where Love had placed me, with a meaning other than that which
the last part of the poem shows, and I say what I have lost. The second
part begins here, “Love, (never, certes).”_
A certain while after the departure of that lady, it pleased the Master
of the Angels to call into His glory a damsel, young and of a gentle
presence, who had been very lovely in the city I speak of: and I saw
her body lying without its soul among many ladies, who held a pitiful
weeping. Whereupon, remembering that I had seen her in the company of
excellent Beatrice, I could not hinder myself from a few tears; and
weeping, I conceived to say somewhat of her death, in guerdon of having
seen her somewhile with my lady; which thing I spake of in the latter
end of the verses that I writ in this matter, as he will discern who
understands. And I wrote two sonnets, which are these:—