There down the margins I was wont to note Each torment grim that crushed me like a vice: The paste my hurrying thoughts could hardly float.
To make an O, I dipped the splinter thrice In that thick mud; worse woe could scarcely grind Spirits in hell debarred from Paradise.
Seeing Im not the first by fraud confined, This Ill omit; and once more seek the cell Wherein I rack for rage both heart and mind.
I praise it more than other tongues will tell; And, for advice to such as do not know, Swear that without it none can labour well.
Yet oh! for one like Him I learned but now, Whod cry to me as by Bethesdas shore: Take thy clothes, Benvenuto, rise and go!
Credo Id sing, Salve reginas pour And Paternosters; alms Id then bestow Morn after morn on blind folk, lame, and poor.
Ah me! how many a time my cheek must grow Blanched by those lilies! Shall I then forswear Florence and France through them for evermore? [4]
If to the hospital I come, and fair Find the Annunziata limned. Ill fly: Else shall I show myself a brute beast there. [5]
These words flout not Her worshipped sanctity, Nor those Her lilies, glorious, holy, pure, The which illumine earth and heaven high!
But for I find at every coign obscure Base lilies which spread hooks where flowers should blow Needs must I fear lest these to ruin lure. [6]
To think how many walk like me in woe! Born what, how slaved to serve that hateful sign! Souls lively, graceful, like to gods below!
I saw that lethal heraldry decline From heaven like lightning among people vain; Then on the stone I saw strange lustre shine.
The castles bell must break ere I with strain Thence issued; and these things Who speaketh true In heaven on earth, to me made wondrous plain. [7]
Next I beheld a bier of sombre hue Adorned with broken lilies; crosses, tears; And on their beds a lost woe-stricken crew. [8]
I saw the Death who racks our souls with fears; This man and that she menaced, while she cried: I clip the folk who harm thee with these shears!
That worthy one then on my brow wrote wide With Peters pen words which-for he bade shun To speak them thrice-within my breast I hide. [9]
Him I beheld who drives and checks the sun, Clad with its splendour mid his court on high, Seld-seen by mortal eyes, if eer by one. [10]