Guido Cavalcanti (1255–1300)

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Beltà di donna e di saccente core

WHATSO is fair in lady’s face or mind,

And gentle knights caparison’d and gay;

The singing of sweet birds to love inclined,

And gallant barks that cut the watery way;

The white snow falling without any wind,

The cloudless sky at break of early day,

The crystal stream, with flowers the meadow lined,

Silver, and gold, and azure for array:—

To him that sees the beauty and the worth

Whose power doth meet and in my lady dwell,

All seem as vile, their price and lustre gone;

And, as the heaven is higher than the earth,

So she in knowledge doth each one excel,

Not slow to good in nature like her own.