A pure white hind appeared to me

‘Una candida cerva sopra l'erba' A pure white hind appeared to me with two gold horns, on green grass, between two streams, in a laurel's shade, at sunrise, in the unripe season. Her aspect was so sweet and proud I left all my labour to follow her: as a miser, in search of treasure, makes his toil lose its bitterness in delight. ‘Touch me not,' in diamonds and topaz, was written round about her lovely neck: ‘it pleased my Lord to set me free.' The sun had already mounted to mid-day, my eyes were tired with gazing, but not sated, when I fell into water, and she vanished. Translated by: A. S. Kline