Original text (Italian)
Gather the rose of love, while yet thou mayest,
Loving, be loved; embracing, be embraced.
Under whose feet, subjected to his grace,
Sit nature, fortune, motion, time and place.
For in a world so mutable and blind
it's often constancy to change one's mind.
Too dark the place and too inscrutable
where mortal men their deepest thoughts control.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Torquato Tasso (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.