If one kiss-reward how rare!
Each new trial might repay.
Swift returns I'd then devise,

Many laborers but not long;
Following so fair a prize,

I could never more go wrong.

Translation of H. W. P.

F

RAIMON DE MIRAVAL

(1190-1200)

AIR summer-time doth me delight,

And song of birds delights no less;
Meadows delight in their green dress,

Delight the trees in verdure bright;

And far, far more delights thy graciousness,

Lady, and I to do thy will, delight.

Yet be not this delight my final boon,

Or I of my desire shall perish soon!

For that desire most exquisite

Of all desires, I live in stress-
Desire of thy rich comeliness;

Oh, come, and my desire requite!
Though doubling that desire by each caress,

Is my desire not single in thy sight?

Let me not then, desiring sink undone;

To love's high joys, desire be rather prone!
No alien joy will I invite,

But joy in thee, to all excess:

Joy in thy grace, nor e'en confess
Whatso might do my joy despite.

So deep my joy, my lady, no distress

That joy shall master; for thy beauty's light

Such joy hath shed, for each day it hath shone,

Joyless I cannot be while I live on.

Translation of H. W. P.

ALBA-AUTHOR UNKNOWN

(TWELFTH CENTURY)

INDER the hawthorns of an orchard lawn,

UN

She laid her head her lover's breast upon, Silent, until the guard should cry the dawn;Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

I would the night might never have passed by!

So wouldst thou not have left me, at the cry

Of yonder warder to the whitening sky;—

Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

One kiss more, sweetheart, ere the melodies
Of early birds from all the fields arise!
One more, without a thought of jealous eyes!—
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

And yet one more, under the garden wall,
For now the birds begin their festival,
And the day wakens at the warder's call;

Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

'Tis o'er! O dearest, noblest, knightliest,
The breeze that greets thy going fans my breast!
I quaff it, as thy breath, and I am blest!-

Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

Fair was the lady, and her fame was wide;
And many knights for her dear favor sighed;
But leal the heart out of whose depths she cried,-
Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon?

Translation of H. W. P.

A

ALBA-GUIRAUT DE BORNEIL

(1175-1230)

LL-GLORIOUS King! True light of all below! Thou who canst all! If it may please thee so, The comrade of my soul from danger screen; Whom all the darkling hours I have not seen, And now the dawn is near.

Dear comrade, wakest thou, or sleepest yet?
Oh, sleep no more, but rouse thee, nor forget

The herald signal in the brightening east,
The star of day that I behold increased
For now the dawn is near.

Dear comrade, hark my summons, I implore!
The little birds are waking,-sleep no more!
Through all the wood they clamor for the day;
Let not yon jealous foe thy steps waylay,

For now the dawn is near.

Dear comrade, rouse thee! Throw thy window wide! See writ in heaven the harm that may betide:

A trusty guardian in thy comrade own,

Or else, alas, the woe will be thine own;

For now the dawn is near.

Dear comrade, since at nightfall we did part,
Slept have I none, but prayed with fervent heart
The son of holy Mary to restore

My loyal fellow to my side once more:

And now the day is near.

Dear comrade, yonder by the frowning keep,
Didst thou not warn me never once to sleep?

Now have I watched all night. Thou doest me wrong
Thus to disdain the singer and the song;
For now the dawn is near.

Sweet comrade mine, I am so rich in bliss,
Naught reck I of the morns to follow this!
I clasp the loveliest one of mother born,
And care no longer, in my happy scorn,
If dawn or foe draw near!

Translation of H. W. P.

A

ALBA- BERTRAND D'AAMANON

(END OF TWELFTH CENTURY)

KNIGHT was sitting by her side

He loved more than aught else beside;
And as he kissed her, often sighed:-

Ah, dearest, now am I forlorn,

Night is away-alas, 'tis morn!

Ah, woe!

Already has the warder cried,

"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day-
The dawn has passed away."

Ah, dearest love! it were a thing
Sweet beyond all imagining,

If naught could day or dawning bring
There, where, caressing and caressed,
A lover clasps her he loves best.
Ah, woe!

Hark! what must end our communing!
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day-
The dawn has passed away."

Dearest, whate'er you hear, believe
That nothing on the earth can grieve
Like him who must his true love leave:
This from myself I know aright.
Alas, how swiftly flies the night!

Ah, woe!

The warder's cry gives no reprieve:
"Up and begone, 'tis now bright day-
The dawn has passed away."

I go! Farewell, sweet love, to thee,
Yours I am still, where'er I be.

Oh, I beseech you think on me!

For here will dwell my heart of hearts,
Nor leave you till its life departs.

Ah, woe!

The warder cries impatiently,

"Up and begone! 'tis now bright dayThe dawn has passed away."

Unless I soon to you can fly,

Dearest, I'll lay me down and die;

So soon will love my heart's springs dry.

Ah! soon will I return again

Life without you is only pain.

Ah, woe!

Hark to the warder's louder cry!

"Up and begone! 'tis now bright day

The dawn is passed away."

Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836.

LUIGI PULCI

(1431-1486)

ITTLE creative work was done in Italian literature in the fifteenth century. Students loved rather to revive the ancient classics; and the Italian language came to be regarded as a tongue too plebeian for the expression of lofty conceptions. Luigi Pulci is one of the few poets of that century who held in honor the Tuscan dialect.

Pulci was born in 1431, and died (according to most authorities) in 1486. His life seems to have had no importance in the political history of his times; but in literature he prepared the way for Berni and for Ariosto, and established for himself a firm position as the author of Il Morgante Maggiore' (Morgante the Giant), a burlesque epic in twenty-eight cantos. He was a warm friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, whose mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, he says, urged and inspired him in the composition of this work. The romances of Carlovingian chivalry had acquired at the time wonderful popularity in Italy; by which popularity Pulci was half maddened, half amused. With infinite delight he gave his mocking imagination free play; and in 'Il Morgante Maggiore' he turns into good-natured ridicule the combats and exploits which form the scheme of the mediæval epic.

The poem has three heroes,- Roland, Rinaldo, and Charlemagne; and a dramatis persona of such proportions that adventures become as numerous as are the sands of the sea. Time and space are here more successfully annihilated than in these days of steam and of electricity. The journey to France from Persia or Babylon is accomplished with a speed which staggers the modern world.

'Il Morgante Maggiore' treats of the time when Roland, enraged by the relations which have sprung up between Charlemagne and Gano di Maganza, leaves the court of the Emperor, to which he is bound as a paladin, and journeys in foreign lands. At the outset of his trip he comes to a monastery assaulted by three giants of fabulous proportions: Roland confronts two of these and kills them; the third, Morgante, he converts to Christianity, and carries with him as a companion. Though not its principal personage, this giant, Morgante, gives his name to the epic. He and Roland proceed together;