One thing you must say, and that is that, even when I have sinned most against her, I have never forgotten her; nay, that the memory of that happy time when she was fain to call herself my Laura moved me to ride forth to Treviso, where, in the chapel of the Franciscan Brethren, there may be seen a head of the true Laura done by the limner Simone di Martino, the friend of Petrarca, a right worthy work of art.

Methought she drew me to her with voice and becks.

And yet, and yet--woe, woe is me! "My pen has had a long rest, for meseemed I saw first Petrarca's lady with her fair braids, and then Ann with her black hair, which shone with such lustrous, soft waves, and lay so nobly on the snow-white brow.

Her eyes and mien are verily those of Laura; both alike pure and lofty.
But here my full heart over-flows; it cannot forget how far Ann exceeds Laura in sweet woman's grace.
"Day is breaking, and I can but sigh forth to the morning: 'Lost, lost! I have lost the fairest and the best!' "Then I sat long, sunk in thought, looking out of window, across the bare tree-tops in the garden, at the grey mist which seems as though it ended only at the edge of the world.

It drips from the leafless boughs, and mine eyes--I need not hide it--will not be kept dry.