Translations. - Milton's Italian Poems. Iv.
By George MacDonald
Diodati--and I muse to tell the tale--
This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise
And make a laughter of his snares, unwise,
Am fallen--where honest feet will sometimes fail.
Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil,
Dazzle me thus; but, in a new-world guise,
A foreign Fair my heart beatifies--
With mien where high-souled modesty I hail;
Eyes softly splendent with a darkness dear;
A speech that more than one tongue vassal hath;
A voice that in the middle hemisphere
Might make the tired moon wander from her path;
While from her eyes such gracious flashes shoot
That stopping hard my ears were little boot.