Sonnets
SONNET XXXI
You, who within your eyes so often carry
That Love who holdeth in his hand three arrows,
Behold my spirit, by his far-brought sorrows,
Commends to you a soul whom hot griefs harry.
A mind thrice wounded she[1] already hath,
By this keen archer’s Syrian shafts twice shot.
The third, less tautly drawn, hath reached me not,
Seeing your presence is my shield ’gainst wrath.
Yet this third shot had made more safe my soul,
Who almost dead beneath her members lies;
For these two arrows give three wounds in all:
The first: delight, which payeth pain his toll;
The second brings desire for the prize
Of that great joy which with the third doth fall.
- ↑ I. e. The Soul. I have kept the Italian gender in those few sonnets where there is no danger of confusing “her,” the soul, with the subjects of other feminine pronouns.
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