The Unknown One

Every day I have a meeting
With my golden-tressèd beauty
In the Tuileries’ fair garden
Underneath the chesnuts’ shadow.

Every day she goes to walk there
With two old and ugly women--
Are they aunts? or else two soldiers
Muffled up in women’s garments?

Overawed by the mustachios
Of her masculine attendants,
And still farther overawed too
By the feelings in my bosom,

I ne’er ventured e’en one sighing
Word to whisper as I pass’d her,
And with looks I scarcely ventured
Ever to proclaim my passion.

For the first time I to-day have
Learnt her name. Her name is Laura,
Like the Provençal fair maiden
Whom the famous poet loved so.

Laura is her name! I’ve gone now
Just as far as Master Petrarch,
Who the fair one celebrated
In canzonas and in sonnets.

Laura is her name! like Petrarch
I can now platonically
Revel in this name euphonious--
He himself no further ventured.