Love
Sonnet: A Rapture concerning his Lady
Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1861) · From The Early Italian Poets (1861)
Who is she coming, whom all gaze upon,
Who makes the air all tremulous with light,
And at whose side is Love himself? that none
Dare speak, but each man's sighs are infinite.
Ah me! how she looks round from left to right,
Let Love discourse: I may not speak thereon.
Lady she seems of such high benison
As makes all others graceless in men's sight.
The honour which is hers cannot be said;
To whom are subject all things virtuous,
While all things beauteous own her deity.
Ne'er was the mind of man so nobly led
Nor yet was such redemption granted us
That we should ever know her perfectly.
Cite this poem
MLA
Cavalcanti, Guido. “Sonnet: A Rapture concerning his Lady.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/3/.
Chicago
Cavalcanti, Guido. “Sonnet: A Rapture concerning his Lady.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/3/.
Read this poem with the Codex →
More by Guido Cavalcanti
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- Sonnet: Of his Pain from a new Love
- Sonnet: To a newly enriched Man; reminding him of the Wants of the Poor
- Canzone: He laments the Presumption and Incontinence of his Youth