III.   MEDIÆVAL LATIN STUDENTS’ SONGS

76

“A third ‘poem of privacy’ may be employed to temper this too fervid mood.” (Referring to two preceding poems omitted from our present collection.) “I conceive it to be meant for the monologue of a lover in the presence of his sweetheart, and to express the varying lights and shades of his emotion.”

THE
LOVER’S
MONOLOGUE.

LOVE rules everything that is:
Love doth change hearts in a kiss;
Love seeks devious ways of bliss:
    Love than honey sweeter,
    Love than gall more bitter.
Blind Love hath no modesties.
    Love is lukewarm, fiery, cold;
    Love is timid, overbold;
    Loyal, treacherous, manifold.


Present time is fit for play:
Let Love find his mate to-day:
Hark, the birds, how sweet their lay!
    Love rules young men wholly;
    Love lures maidens solely.
Woe to old folk! sad are they.
    Sweetest woman ever seen,
    Fairest, dearest, is my queen;
    And alas! my chiefest teen.

77
Let an old man, chill and drear,
Never come thy bosom near;
Oft he sleeps with sorry cheer,
    Too cold to delight thee:
    Naught could less invite thee.
Youth with youth must mate, my dear.
    Blest the union I desire;
    Naught I know and naught require,
    Better than to be thy squire.


Love flies all the world around:
Love in wanton wiles is wound:
Therefore youth and maid are bound
    In Love’s fetters duly.
    She is joyless truly
Who no lover yet hath found!
    All the night in grief and smart
    She must languish, wear her heart;
    Bitter is that woman’s part.


Love is simple, Love is sly;
Love is pale, of ruddy dye:
Love is all things, low and high:
    Love is serviceable,
    Constant and unstable:
Love obeys Art’s empery.
    In this closed room Love takes flight,
    In the silence of the night,
    Love made captive, conquered quite.