| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | Whatso Is Fair | | By 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | | | | |
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