SONNETS FROM CAMOENS 399 
“For we had been reading Camoens, — that poem, you remember, 
Which his lady’s eyes were praised in, as the sweetest ever seen.” 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
(186.) 
“Os olhos onde o casto Amor ardia.” 
THOSE eyes from whence chaste love was wont 
to glow, 
And smiled to see his torches kindled there ; 
That face within whose beauty strange and 
rare 
The rosy light of dawn gleamed o’er the 
snow ; 
That hair, which bid the envious sun to know 
His brightest beams less golden rays did 
wear ; 
That pure white hand, that gracious form 
and fair: 
All these into the dust of earth must go. 
O perfect beauty in its tenderest age ! 
O flower cut down ere it could all unfold 
By the stern hand of unrelenting death ! 
Why did not Love itself quit earth’s poor stage, 
Not because here dwelt beauty’s perfect 
mould, 
But that so soon it passed from mortal 
breath ? 
