Index of First Lines

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Admiring the clear sun of her great eyes

Ah, liberty, sweet freedom, how you’ve shown

Ah, Love, when hope for recompense

Ah, my dear lord, each thought calls me to see

Ah, reach your hand out to my weary mind

A lady much more splendid than the sun—

Alas, I burn, and no one will believe me;

Alas, I don’t know where to put the hope

Alas, I know that she who pardons no man

Alas, I was not careful at the first

Alas! That lovely face, that gentle gaze.

A little angel, new, on nimble wings

All day I weep; and then at night when most

All you who hear in scattered rhymes the sound

Alone and pensive, crossing empty fields

Although another’s fault removes from me

Although I’ve tried to hinder you from lying

And is this it, the nest in which my phoenix

Anger defeated victorious Alexander

Apollo loved a tree in human form;

A royal nature, intellect angelic

As her white foot moves forward through cool grass

As long as my two temples are not white

A soul had been created in a place

As soon as bowstring’s loosed and arrow flies

At every step I make I turn around

A thousand times, oh, my sweet warrior

A thousand years could Polyclitus study

A toughness that was sweet, and calm rejections

At that time when the sky goes slanting quickly

A white doe on green grass appeared to me;

A wild and hardened heart, a cruel will

Beautiful soul, freed from the knot that was

Beautiful Virgin, dressed in glorious sunlight

Because our life is brief

Because she bore Love’s ensign in her face

Because the bright, angelic sight of her

Below the foothills where she first put on

Between two lovers once I saw a lady

Bitter tears come raining down my face

Blessed in sleep and languishing, contented

Both Love and I are full of sheer amazement

Bright sparks came from that pair of lovely lights

But now that her sweet smile, soft and humble

By the Tyrrhenian Sea, on its left bank

Caesar and Jove were never so much moved

Casting your eyes upon my strange new pallor

Charlemagne’s inheritor, who wears

Clear waters, fresh and sweet

Could I portray the gentle breeze of sighs

Cruel star (if heavens have indeed the power

Death has no way to make her sweet face bitter

Death has put out the sun that dazzled me;

Death, you have left this poor world cold and dark

Desire spurs me on, Love guides and escorts

Diana’s form did not delight her lover

Each day seems longer than a thousand years

Father of Heaven, after days now lost

Flame of my soul, lovely beyond all beauty

For any animal who dwells on earth

For seventeen long years the heavens have rolled

Fountain of sorrow, dwelling place of anger

From ice that’s clear, alive, and smooth and shining

From the most lovely eyes, the brightest face

From thought to thought, from peak to mountain peak

From time to time it seems her form and smile

From wicked Babylon, that’s lost all shame

Full of one longing thought that sends me far

Full of that sweet ineffable delight

“Gaze on that hill, my tired, yearning heart:

Gentle, my lady, I can see

Geri, when my sweet enemy gets angry

Give me my peace, oh, all you cruel thoughts!

Glorious Column, raising up our hope

Go, doleful rhymes, and visit the hard stone

Go forth, hot sighs, and reach to her cold heart

“Go on and weep, my eyes: accompany

Gorging and sleep and lounging on pillows

Graces that bounteous Heaven grants to few

Green garments, blood red, black, or purple

Hannibal won but later did not know

“Happy and pensive, in company, alone

Here where I half exist, my dear Sennuccio

Her golden hair was loosened to the breeze

Her lovely paleness made a cloud of love

He who decides to entrust his life

He who showed endless providence and art

However many lovely, graceful ladies

How many times, in flight and seeking refuge

How many times Love has instructed me:

How many times, using my faithful guides

How much I envy you, you greedy earth

How this world goes! For what upset me once

I am so weary from my ancient bundle

I can’t be silent, yet I fear my tongue

I’d like to take revenge on her, whose gaze

I do not tire, Lady, of my love

I don’t see anymore how to escape;

I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion

I fear their fierce attack, those lovely eyes

I feed my mind upon a food so noble

I feel the ancient aura, and I see

If fair desire’s still alive, Apollo

If faithfulness in love, a heart sincere

If fire never puts a fire out

If Homer and then Virgil had but seen

If I could get my thoughts down in these verses

If I could hope by death to free myself

If I do not deceive myself too much

If I’d remained within that selfsame cave

If I had known that sighs turned into rhyme

If I hear birds lamenting, or green leaves

I find no peace, and yet I am not warlike;

If I said that, then may the one whose love

If it’s not love, what is it then I feel?

I fled the prison in which Love had held me

If Love and Death don’t manage to cut short

If Love does not come up with some new counsel

I fly so often on the wings of thought

If my life can withstand this bitter torment

If that much-honored branch that shelters us

If that sweet glance of hers can murder me

If the rock mainly shuts this valley

If the thoughts that hurt me

If virtuous love is worthy, still, of mercy

If you got free by any strange behavior—

I go around in tears about my past

I knew (since Heaven cleared my eyes so much

I know quite well that natural advice

I listen still, and still I hear no news

I lived quite well contented with my fate

I’ll always hate the window from which Love

I make my plaint before the queen who rules

I’m never going to look with tranquil mind

I’m so defeated by this endless wait

I’m weary now of thinking how my thoughts

In doubt about my state I weep, I sing

I never saw the sun come up so fair

I never wish to sing    the way I used to

In just a single day I have been shown

In noble blood a quiet, humble life

Inside my heart I felt my spirits dying

In that direction where I’m spurred by Love

In the age of her lovely flowering

In the sweet season of my early youth

I sang and now I weep; and from my weeping

I saw a maiden underneath a laurel

I saw, among a thousand ladies, one

I saw on earth angelic attributes

I seem to hear, each hour, in my ear

Italy, my Italy, though speech cannot

I thought by now perhaps that I could live

I thought I had the skill to soar in flight

It is so weak, the thread by which it hangs

It was the day the sun himself grew pale

It was the time to find a peace or truce

I used to leave the fountain of my life

I’ve always loved, I go on loving still

I’ve always sought a solitary life—

I’ve begged Love before, and beg him again

I’ve filled the whole surrounding air with sighs

I’ve never been where I could see more clearly

I’ve never seen you put aside your veil

I’ve now passed through my sixteenth year of sighs

I walk in thought, and in my thoughts I am

I wanted once to shape such just laments

I wept and now I sing, because that sun

Just as eternal life means seeing God

Lady, now living in our Maker’s presence

Latona’s son had looked nine times already

Life-giving sun, you loved that branch at first

—“Life is most precious, so it seems to me

Life runs on by and does not pause an hour

Love, Fortune, and my mind—which now avoids

Love fires up my heart with ardent zeal

Love helped me sail into a tranquil harbor

Love, I do wrong and see that I do wrong

Love, let us pause to contemplate our glory

Love opened my left side with his right hand

Love sends me that sweet thought, the one which is

Love sets me up, a target for his arrows

Love spreads out in the grass a graceful net

Love spurs me on and reins me in at once

Love’s put me in the grasp of fair, cruel arms

Love that lives and reigns in all my thoughts

Love took me in with all his promises

Love used to cry, and I would cry with him

Love, you who can see clearly all my thoughts

Lucky, happy flowers, and well-born grass

Maybe Love makes her drop her lovely eyes

May fire from Heaven rain down on your tresses

Mind, you foresaw your pains and injuries

More fortunate than any other earth

My enemy, in whom you watch your eyes

My eyes, intense and heavy with desire

My eyes, our sun’s gone dark; or rather say

My face and hair are changing, day by day

My faithful mirror tells me very often

My flowering green age was passing by

My fortune kindly and my life so joyful

My fourteenth year of sighs: if its beginning

My galley, loaded with forgetfulness

My good luck is both late and very sluggish;

My ills oppress me; I’m terrified by worse

My lady used to visit me in sleep

My luck, along with Love, had blessed me so

My mad desire has gone so far astray

My sacred aura breathes so often, in

My soft and gentle comforter arrives

My sweet and dear and greatly cherished pledge

My thoughts would once chat softly to themselves

My thought transported me to where she was

My weary eyes, when I direct you toward

Nature, and Love, and that sweet, humble soul

Never did tender mother her dear son

New song and weeping by the birds at daybreak

Noble spirit, you who rule those limbs

No matter where I turn my weary eyes

No ship that ever landed, weather-racked

No sparrow on a roof was as alone

Not from the Spanish river Ebro to

No tired helmsman ever fled to port

Not just that single naked hand

Not lovely stars that wander through clear skies

Not Tesin, Po, Varo, Arno, Adige, Tiber

Now look at this, Love: how a youthful woman

Now that the heavens, earth, and winds are silent

Now when I listen to you speak, so sweetly

Now you have done the worst you can accomplish

Now Zephyrus returns, bringing fine weather

Oh, blessed and lovely soul, which Heaven waits for

Oh day, oh hour, oh, the final moment

Oh, Death, you have stained the loveliest face

Oh, Envy, you old enemy of virtue

Oh, fresh and shady, flowering green hill

Oh, glances sweet and little words of wisdom

Oh, happy spirit that so sweetly governed

Oh, little room that used to be a haven

Oh, lovely hand that grasps my heart, enclosing

Oh, noble spirit warm with burning virtue

Oh, put me where the sun kills flowers and grass

Oh, scattered steps, oh, ardent, craving thoughts

Oh, time, oh, fickle heavens, wheeling past

Oh, valley echoing with my laments

Oh, woe, Love takes me where I do not wish

Oh, wretched vision, horrid likelihood!

Once I accused myself, now I excuse

One day as I stood gazing from my window

Out of what mine did Love extract the gold

Po, you can bear my outer shell along

Pursued by Love to my accustomed place

Rapacious Babylon has stuffed her sack

Right through the midst of savage, hostile woods

Sennuccio, just see how I am treated here

She comes to mind (or rather say that she

She sojourned in my heart, alive and fair

Should any lady look for lasting fame

Since it’s my destiny

Since Mercy’s road is closed to me, I’ve come

Since what I hope for is so long in coming

Since you and I have proved so frequently

Some animals there are with eyes so strong

Something that, both in color and in fragrance

Sometime near dawn there rises a sweet aura

Sometimes, ashamed that I have not been rhyming

Some will assume that in my praise of her

Sorrow and love propelled this tongue of mine

Sun bathes his golden chariot in the sea

Sweet angers, sweet disdains, sweet peace accords

Swifter than any deer my days have fled

Swift river, coming from your Alpine source

That always cruel and yet honored day

That burning knot which, hour after hour

That dreadful lord whom we can’t flee or hide from

That fire which I thought had spent itself

That light that blinds, even when far away

That nightingale who weeps so tenderly

That time a tree had fallen, seemingly

That window where one sun is visible

That yearning, sweet, dear, virtuous gaze of hers

The aura and the fragrance and the coolness

The breeze that softly sighs and moves among

The burdened air and unrelenting cloud

The chosen angels and the blessed souls

The closer that I come to the last day

The column’s broken, the green laurel’s down

The day, the month, the year, oh, bless them all

The golden feathers that surround her white

The gold, the pearls, the flowers red and white

The gracious lady whom you loved so much

The heavenly breeze that sighs in that green laurel

The high, new miracle that in our time

The lady whom my heart is always watching

The last, alas, of all my happy days

The longed-for virtue that was flowering in you

The man whose hands were ready to turn Thessaly

The more I spread my wings, filled with desire

The noble tree I’ve loved so many years

Then when my heart was eaten by love’s worms

The one for whom I traded Sorgue for Arno

There may have been a time when love was sweet

There never was a lake or river, Orso

The sacred prospect of your city makes

The sea has fewer fish among its waves

The soft breeze spreads and vibrates in the sunlight

The star of love was flaming in the East

The stars, the heavens, and the elements

The sun that showed me how to get to Heaven

The sweet hill country where I left myself

The time is gone, alas, when I could live

The time so short, the thought so swift that brings

The tranquil breeze that passes, murmuring

The way a simple butterfly, in summer

This frail and brittle goodness that we cherish

This humble wild thing, with tiger’s heart, or bear’s

This noble breeze that clears the hills again

This noble soul that starts to move away

Those eyes I spoke about so heatedly

Those lovely eyes that hurt me are the only

Those verses full of pity where I saw

Though you have left me, my Sennuccio

To make a graceful one his sweet vendetta

Toward the sweet shadow of those lovely leaves

To wish for evening and to hate the dawn

Tree of victorious triumph, crowning both

Twelve ladies chastely resting at their ease

Twenty-one years Love held me in the fire

Two great opponents were united once:

Two lovely eyes, brimming with virtue’s sweetness:

Two roses, freshly picked in Paradise

Use one of these to rest your cheek, my lord

Wandering bird that can continue singing

Weep, ladies, weep, and let Love weep as you do;

“What are you doing, soul? What do you think?

What are you doing? Thinking? Why look still

What destiny of mine, what force, what trick

What do I do? Can you advise me, Love?

Whatever’s strange and rare

What fear I feel when I recall that day

What fortune was it that from those two eyes

What part of Heaven was it, what Idea

What pity, ah, what angel was so swift

When Alexander saw the famous tomb

When I am turned around to see the place

When I breathe out my sighs and call your name

When I recall the time and place where I

When I see dawn descending from the sky

When I think back upon that gentle glance

When I turn round to scan those recent years

When Love, alas, decides to reassault me

When my desire, which rides me hard and rules me

When now and then among the other ladies

When Simon came upon that high conceit

When sun, the planet marking off the hours

When the Egyptian traitor handed him

When through my eyes, down to my deepest heart

Where is that brow that with the smallest sign

White-haired and pale, the old man takes his leave

Whoever wants to see what Heaven and Nature

With food my lord always provides profusely—

You breezes that surround those curling tresses

You, Love, who stayed with me in happy times

Your charger, Orso, can be given reins

You seem to show me, Love, that you would like

You soul in bliss, who often come to me

You, Soul, who see so many different things