taste;
    Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: 
    Yet though I rank so high
  Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss,
  Still without thee, my hope, my happiness,
    It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! 
    Then stint me not, but give
  That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. 
  Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone!

With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca in the Pitti Palace at Florence.

It is worth comparing Poliziano’s treatment of popular or semi-popular verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch’s manner.  For this purpose I have chosen a Canzone, clearly written in competition with the celebrated ‘Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,’ of Laura’s lover.  While closely modelled upon Petrarch’s form and similar in motive, this Canzone preserves Poliziano’s special qualities of fluency and emptiness of content.

  Hills, valleys, caves and fells,
    With flowers and leaves and herbage spread;
    Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low;
    Lawns watered with the rills
    That cruel Love hath made me shed,
    Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe;
    Thou stream that still dost know
    What fell pangs pierce my heart,
    So dost thou murmur back my moan;
    Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone,
    While in our descant drear Love sings his part: 
    Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air;
    List to the sound out-poured from my despair! 
  Seven times and once more seven
    The roseate dawn her beauteous brow
    Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed;
    Cynthia once more in heaven
    Hath orbed her horns with silver now;
    While in sea waves her brother’s light was laid;
    Since this high mountain glade
    Felt the white footsteps fall
    Of that proud lady, who to spring
    Converts whatever woodland thing
    She may o’ershadow, touch, or heed at all. 
    Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring
    From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. 
  Yea, nourished with my tears
    Is every little leaf I see,
    And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. 
    Ah me! through what long years
    Will she withhold her face from me,
    Which stills the stormy skies howe’er they rave? 
    Speak! or in grove or cave
    If one hath seen her stray,
    Plucking amid those grasses green
    Wreaths for her royal brows serene,
    Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! 
    Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell
    Among these woods, within this leafy dell! 
  O Love! ’twas here we saw,
    Beneath the new-fledged leaves