Note 11 — TASSO AND CORNELIA
Reading edition
The author wrote the verses first in English, but he found it easy to write them better in Italian: they stood in the text as below: they only do for a girl of thirteen:
‘Swallow! swallow! though so jetty Are your pinions, you are pretty: And what matter were it though You were blacker than a crow? Of the many birds that fly (And how many pass me by!) You ’re the first I ever prest, Of the many, to my breast: Therefore it is very right You should be my own delight.’