Sestina
I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the
whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my
desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest
stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.
And likewise
this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is
unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the
hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.
When her head wears a crown of grass
she
draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with
the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in
these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.
Her beauty
has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with
grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my
release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on
me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.
I have seen her walk all dressed in
green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear
for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as
much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest
hills.
The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood,
that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me,
who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only
to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.
Whenever the hills cast
blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man
hides stone in grass.
to the short day and to the
whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my
desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest
stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.
And likewise
this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is
unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the
hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.
When her head wears a crown of grass
she
draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with
the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in
these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.
Her beauty
has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with
grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my
release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on
me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.
I have seen her walk all dressed in
green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear
for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as
much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest
hills.
The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood,
that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me,
who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only
to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.
Whenever the hills cast
blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man
hides stone in grass.