The poem is five sonnets, plus a 4-line concluding tag. In this version, I'm trying to avoid gendered language – Love isn't he/him, but they/them – and also the mystical use of the word white – In the Pisan Cantos, Pound came up with a great alternative – candor.
1
Because a woman asks me, I speak
of an accident, fierce
and haughty, which is called love.
Let the haters hate.
I call those who know,
I hold my breath and cast my heart low.
To bring the base-hearted to
understanding, I have no way
but to say where love lives, by what created,
what their quality and force,
their essence, each movement
of their delight, what it means to love,
all that can be shown to gazing.
2
They dwell in the fields of memory,
veined and demure,
under Mars’s protection,
formed of a spume of light.
Clothed in soul, will from the heart,
they come to sense and name among
those visible forms which take on
and embrace all possible
intellect. Yet they have no
weight, since they are not qualities
falling, but shine out of themselves.
Nothing can scatter their picture,
perpetual impression,
taking delight in awareness alone.
3
There is no virtue that does not spring from
their presence, self-created through feeling.
Not rational, I say,
beyond balance, proclaiming
that will itself, not reason, is valid –
though poor in discernment
so that vice is their friend,
and death often follows.
To oppose their strength
goes against what brings succor –
not opposed to perfection by nature,
but twisted awry by fate.
No one alive can say they aren’t in charge.
They have the power, though we forget.
4
They come to being when the heart
is pricked so full
that nature herself cannot rest,
but moves, changes color, weeps,
her features contorted as if from fear;
yet you’ll notice
they’re found most often with people of worth
whom they move to sighs
aroused by blazes of the fire they send –
not moving but drawing
to stillness, not turning
about to behold their joy,
imagining already beyond proving,
not minded to know the details.
5
Like from like, complexion matching
the delight of the eye, not some hidden star.
Coming as friends,
beauty their dart, because desire follows
fearlessly the breath of liking
even to the arrow point.
Nor to be known by sight, comprised
of so much candor falling on everything,
touched deeply, yet seeing nothing
but the aim proceeding
from spectrum to single beam.
Seated in half-dark, winnowing light.
remote from all falsity – I say,
the one who knows them wins the prize.
___________
Song, you certainly turned out well –
seeking the praise
of people of understanding;
others were never addressed.
