XXIV.
Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart
Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow:
And damning their own selves to TANTAL'S smart,
Wealth breeding want; more blest, more wretched grow.
Yet to those fools, heaven such wit doth impart,
As what their hands do hold, their heads do know;
And knowing, love and loving lay apart,
As sacred things, far from all danger's show:
But that rich fool, who by blind Fortune's lot,
The richest gem of love and life enjoys;
And can with foul abuse, such beauties blot:
Let him deprived of sweet but unfelt joys,
(Exiled for aye from those high treasures, which
He knows not) grow in only folly rich!
XXV.
The wisest scholar of the wight most wise,
By PHOEBUS' doom, with sugared sentence says:
"That virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise:
But for that man, with pain this truth descries,
Whiles he each thing in sense's balance weighs:
And so nor will, nor can behold those skies,
Which inward sun to heroic minds displays."
Virtue, of late, with virtuous care to stir
Love of herself, takes STELLA'S shape; that she
To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.
It is most true. For since I her did see,
Virtue's great beauty in that face I prove,
And find th'effect: for I do burn in love.
