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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: your benefit, word for word, and line for line:--
FIRST SONNET
Many a time I've stood, clad in thin silken vest,
Drawn sword in hand, with steady pulse,
Waiting the charge of a raging bull,
And the thrust of his horn, sharper-pointed than Phoebe's crescent.
I've scaled, on my lips the lilt of an Andalusian dance,
The steep redoubt under a rain of fire;
I've staked my life upon a hazard of the dice
Careless, as though it were a gold doubloon.
My hand would seek the ball out of the cannon's mouth,
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