I' Ho Pregato Amor, E Nel Riprego

HE PLEADS THE EXCESS OF HIS PASSION IN PALLIATION OF HIS FAULT.

Oft have I pray'd to Love, and still I pray, / My charming agony, my bitter joy! / That he would crave your grace, if consciously / From the right path my guilty footsteps stray.

That Reason, which o'er happier minds holds sway, / Is quell'd of Appetite, I not deny; / And hence, through tracks my better thoughts would fly, / The victor hurries me perforce away, / You, in whose bosom Genius, Virtue reign / With mingled blaze lit by auspicious skies -- / Ne'er shower'd kind star its beams on aught so rare! / You, you should say with pity, not disdain; / "How could he 'scape, lost wretch! these lightning eyes -- / So passionate he, and I so direly fair?"

WRANGHAM.