Collected Poetical Works of Francesco Petrarch

by Francesco Petrarch

  Ways apt and new to sing of love I’d find,

  Forcing from her hard heart full many a sigh,

  And re-enkindle in her frozen mind

  Desires a thousand, passionate and high;

  O’er her fair face would see each swift change pass,

  See her fond eyes at length where pity reigns,

  As one who sorrows when too late, alas!

  For his own error and another’s pains;

  See the fresh roses edging that fair snow

  Move with her breath, that ivory descried,

  Which turns to marble him who sees it near;

  See all, for which in this brief life below

  Myself I weary not but rather pride

  That Heaven for later times has kept me here.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CII.

  S’ Amor non è, che dunque è quel ch’ i’ sento?

  THE CONTRADICTIONS OF LOVE.

  If no love is, O God, what fele I so?

  And if love is, what thing and which is he?

  If love be gode, from whence cometh my woe?

  If it be wicke, a wonder thinketh me

  When every torment and adversite

  That cometh of him may to me savory thinke:

  For aye more thurst I the more that I drinke.

  And if that at my owne lust I brenne,

  From whence cometh my wailing and my pleinte?

  If harme agre me whereto pleine I thenne?

  I not nere why unwery that I feinte.

  O quickè deth, O surelè harme so quainte,

  How may I see in me such quantite,

  But if that I consent that so it be?

  CHAUCER.

  If ’tis not love, what is it feel I then?

  If ’tis, how strange a thing, sweet powers above!

  If love be kind, why does it fatal prove?

  If cruel, why so pleasing is the pain?

  If ’tis my will to love, why weep, why plain?

  If not my will, tears cannot love remove.

  O living death! O rapturous pang! — why, love!

  If I consent not, canst thou o’er me reign?

  If I consent, ’tis wrongfully I mourn:

  Thus on a stormy sea my bark is borne

  By adverse winds, and with rough tempest tost;

  Thus unenlightened, lost in error’s maze,

  My blind opinion ever dubious strays;

  I’m froze by summer, scorched by winter’s frost.

  ANON. 1777.

  SONNET CIII.

  Amor m’ ha posto come segno a strale.

  LOVE’S ARMOURY.

  Love makes me as the target for his dart,

  As snow in sunshine, or as wax in flame,

  Or gale-driven cloud; and, Laura, on thy name

  I call, but thou no pity wilt impart.

  Thy radiant eyes first caused my bosom’s smart;

  No time, no place can shield me from their beam;

  From thee (but, ah, thou treat’st it as a dream!)

  Proceed the torments of my suff’ring heart.

  Each thought’s an arrow, and thy face a sun,

  My passion’s flame: and these doth Love employ

  To wound my breast, to dazzle, and destroy.

  Thy heavenly song, thy speech with which I’m won,

  All thy sweet breathings of such strong controul,

  Form the dear gale that bears away my soul.

  NOTT.

  Me Love has placed as mark before the dart,

  As to the sun the snow, as wax to fire,

  As clouds to wind: Lady, e’en now I tire,

  Craving the mercy which never warms thy heart.

  From those bright eyes was aim’d the mortal blow,

  ‘Gainst which nor time nor place avail’d me aught;

  From thee alone — nor let it strange be thought —

  The sun, the fire, the wind whence I am so.

  The darts are thoughts of thee, thy face the sun,

  The fire my passion; such the weapons be

  With which at will Love dazzles yet destroys.

  Thy fragrant breath and angel voice — which won

  My heart that from its thrall shall ne’er be free —

  The wind which vapour-like my frail life flies.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CIV.

  Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra.

  LOVE’S INCONSISTENCY.

  I fynde no peace and all my warre is done,

  I feare and hope, I bourne and freese lyke yse;

  I flye above the wynde, yet cannot ryse;

  And nought I have, yet all the worlde I season,

  That looseth, nor lacketh, holdes me in pryson,

  And holdes me not, yet can I escape no wyse.

  Nor lets me leeve, nor die at my devyce,

  And yet of death it giveth none occasion.

  Without eye I see, and without tongue I playne;

  I desyre to perishe, yet aske I health;

  I love another, and yet I hate my self;

  I feede in sorrow and laughe in all my payne,

  Lykewyse pleaseth me both death and lyf,

  And my delight is cawser of my greif.

  WYATT.[S]

  Warfare I cannot wage, yet know not peace;

  I fear, I hope, I burn, I freeze again;

  Mount to the skies, then bow to earth my face;

  Grasp the whole world, yet nothing can obtain.

  His prisoner Love nor frees, nor will detain;

  In toils he holds me not, nor will release;

  He slays me not, nor yet will he unchain;

  Nor joy allows, nor lets my sorrow cease.

  Sightless I see my fair; though mute, I mourn;

  I scorn existence, and yet court its stay;

  Detest myself, and for another burn;

  By grief I’m nurtured; and, though tearful, gay;

  Death I despise, and life alike I hate:

  Such, lady, dost thou make my wayward state!

  NOTT.

  CANZONE XVIII.

  Qual più diversa e nova.

  HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.

  Whate’er most wild and new

  Was ever found in any foreign land,

  If viewed and valued true,

  Most likens me ‘neath Love’s transforming hand.

  Whence the bright day breaks through,

  Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,

  Who voluntary dies,

  To live again regenerate and entire:

  So ever my desire,

  Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest

  Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,

  There melts and is undone,

  And sinking to its first state of unrest,

  So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,

  And, Phoenix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms.

  Where Indian billows sweep,

  A wondrous stone there is, before whose strength

  Stout navies, weak to keep

  Their binding iron, sink engulf’d at length:

  So prove I, in this deep

  Of bitter grief, whom, with her own hard pride,

  That fair rock knew to guide

  Where now my life in wreck and ruin drives:

  Thus too the soul deprives,

  By theft, my heart, which once so stonelike was,

  It kept my senses whole, now far dispersed:

  For mine, O fate accurst!

  A rock that lifeblood and not iron draws,

  Whom still i’ the flesh a magnet living, sweet,

  Drags to the fatal shore a certain doom to meet.

  Neath the far Ethiop skies

  A beast is found, most mild and meek of air,

  Which seems, yet in her eyes

  Danger and dool and death she still does bear:

  Much needs he to be wise

  To look on hers whoever turns
his mien:

  Although her eyes unseen,

  All else securely may be viewed at will

  But I to mine own ill

  Run ever in rash grief, though well I know

  My sufferings past and future, still my mind

  Its eager, deaf and blind

  Desire o’ermasters and unhinges so,

  That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face,

  Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death I trace.

  In the rich South there flows

  A fountain from the sun its name that wins,

  This marvel still that shows,

  Boiling at night, but chill when day begins;

  Cold, yet more cold it grows

  As the sun’s mounting car we nearer see:

  So happens it with me

  (Who am, alas! of tears the source and seat),

  When the bright light and sweet,

  My only sun retires, and lone and drear

  My eyes are left, in night’s obscurest reign,

  I burn, but if again

  The gold rays of the living sun appear,

  My slow blood stiffens, instantaneous, strange;

  Within me and without I feel the frozen change!

  Another fount of fame

  Springs in Epirus, which, as bards have told,

  Kindles the lurking flame,

  And the live quenches, while itself is cold.

  My soul, that, uncontroll’d,

  And scathless from love’s fire till now had pass’d,

  Carelessly left at last

  Near the cold fair for whom I ceaseless sigh,

  Was kindled instantly:

  Like martyrdom, ne’er known by day or night,

  A heart of marble had to mercy shamed.

  Which first her charms inflamed

  Her fair and frozen virtue quenched the light;

  That thus she crushed and kindled my heart’s fire,

  Well know I who have felt in long and useless ire.

  Beyond our earth’s known brinks,

  In the famed Islands of the Blest, there be

  Two founts: of this who drinks

  Dies smiling: who of that to live is free.

  A kindred fate Heaven links

  To my sad life, who, smilingly, could die

  For like o’erflowing joy,

  But soon such bliss new cries of anguish stay.

  Love! still who guidest my way,

  Where, dim and dark, the shade of fame invites,

  Not of that fount we speak, which, full each hour,

  Ever with larger power

  O’erflows, when Taurus with the Sun unites;

  So are my eyes with constant sorrow wet,

  But in that season most when I my Lady met.

  Should any ask, my Song!

  Or how or where I am, to such reply:

  Where the tall mountain throws

  Its shade, in the lone vale, whence Sorga flows,

  He roams, where never eye

  Save Love’s, who leaves him not a step, is by,

  And one dear image who his peace destroys,

  Alone with whom to muse all else in life he flies.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CV.

  Fiamma dal ciel su le tue treccie piova.

  HE INVEIGHS AGAINST THE COURT OF ROME.

  Vengeaunce must fall on thee, thow filthie whore

  Of Babilon, thow breaker of Christ’s fold,

  That from achorns, and from the water colde,

  Art riche become with making many poore.

  Thow treason’s neste that in thie harte dost holde

  Of cankard malice, and of myschief more

  Than pen can wryte, or may with tongue be tolde,

  Slave to delights that chastitie hath solde;

  For wyne and ease which settith all thie store

  Uppon whoredome and none other lore,

  In thye pallais of strompetts yonge and olde

  Theare walks Plentie, and Belzebub thye Lorde:

  Guydes thee and them, and doth thye raigne upholde:

  It is but late, as wryting will recorde,

  That poore thow weart withouten lande or goolde;

  Yet now hathe golde and pryde, by one accorde,

  In wickednesse so spreadd thie lyf abrode,

  That it dothe stincke before the face of God.

  (?) WYATT.[T]

  May fire from heaven rain down upon thy head,

  Thou most accurst; who simple fare casts by,

  Made rich and great by others’ poverty;

  How dost thou glory in thy vile misdeed!

  Nest of all treachery, in which is bred

  Whate’er of sin now through the world doth fly;

  Of wine the slave, of sloth, of gluttony;

  With sensuality’s excesses fed!

  Old men and harlots through thy chambers dance;

  Then in the midst see Belzebub advance

  With mirrors and provocatives obscene.

  Erewhile thou wert not shelter’d, nursed on down;

  But naked, barefoot on the straw wert thrown:

  Now rank to heaven ascends thy life unclean.

  NOTT.

  SONNET CVI.

  L’ avara Babilonia ha colmo ‘l sacco.

  HE PREDICTS TO ROME THE ARRIVAL OF SOME GREAT PERSONAGE WHO WILL BRING HER BACK TO HER OLD VIRTUE.

  Covetous Babylon of wrath divine

  By its worst crimes has drain’d the full cup now,

  And for its future Gods to whom to bow

  Not Pow’r nor Wisdom ta’en, but Love and Wine.

  Though hoping reason, I consume and pine,

  Yet shall her crown deck some new Soldan’s brow,

  Who shall again build up, and we avow

  One faith in God, in Rome one head and shrine.

  Her idols shall be shatter’d, in the dust

  Her proud towers, enemies of Heaven, be hurl’d,

  Her wardens into flames and exile thrust,

  Fair souls and friends of virtue shall the world

  Possess in peace; and we shall see it made

  All gold, and fully its old works display’d.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CVII.

  Fontana di dolore, albergo d’ ira.

  HE ATTRIBUTES THE WICKEDNESS OF THE COURT OF ROME TO ITS GREAT WEALTH.

  Spring of all woe, O den of curssed ire,

  Scoole of errour, temple of heresye;

  Thow Pope, I meane, head of hypocrasye,

  Thow and thie churche, unsaciat of desyre,

  Have all the world filled full of myserye;

  Well of disceate, thow dungeon full of fyre,

  That hydes all truthe to breed idolatrie.

  Thow wicked wretche, Chryste cannot be a lyer,

  Behold, therefore, thie judgment hastelye;

  Thye first founder was gentill povertie,

  But there against is all thow dost requyre.

  Thow shameless beaste wheare hast thow thie trust,

  In thie whoredome, or in thie riche attyre?

  Loe! Constantyne, that is turned into dust,

  Shall not retourne for to mayntaine thie lust;

  But now his heires, that might not sett thee higher,

  For thie greate pryde shall teare thye seate asonder,

  And scourdge thee so that all the world shall wonder.

  (?) WYATT.[U]

  Fountain of sorrows, centre of mad ire,

  Rank error’s school and fane of heresy,

  Once Rome, now Babylon, the false and free,

  Whom fondly we lament and long desire.

  O furnace of deceits, O prison dire,

  Where good roots die and the ill-weed grows a tree

  Hell upon earth, great marvel will it be

  If Christ reject thee not in endless fire.

  Founded in humble poverty and chaste,

  Against thy founders lift’st thou now thy horn,

  Impudent harlot! I
s thy hope then placed

  In thine adult’ries and thy wealth ill-born?

  Since comes no Constantine his own to claim,

  The vext world must endure, or end its shame.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CVIII.

  Quanto più desiose l’ ali spando.

  FAR FROM HIS FRIENDS, HE FLIES TO THEM IN THOUGHT.

  The more my own fond wishes would impel

  My steps to you, sweet company of friends!

  Fortune with their free course the more contends,

  And elsewhere bids me roam, by snare and spell

  The heart, sent forth by me though it rebel,

  Is still with you where that fair vale extends,

  In whose green windings most our sea ascends,

  From which but yesterday I wept farewell.

  It took the right-hand way, the left I tried,

  I dragg’d by force in slavery to remain,

  It left at liberty with Love its guide;

  But patience is great comfort amid pain:

  Long habits mutually form’d declare

  That our communion must be brief and rare.

  MACGREGOR.

  SONNET CIX.

  Amor che nel pensier mio vive e regna.

  THE COURAGE AND TIMIDITY OF LOVE.

  The long Love that in my thought I harbour,

  And in my heart doth keep his residence,

  Into my face pressèth with bold pretence,

  And there campèth displaying his bannèr.

  She that me learns to love and to suffèr,

  And wills that my trust, and lust’s negligence

  Be rein’d by reason, shame, and reverence,

  With his hardiness takes displeasure.

  Wherewith Love to the heart’s forest he fleeth,

  Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,

  And there him hideth, and not appearèth.

  What may I do, when my master fearèth,

  But in the field with him to live and die?

  For good is the life, ending faithfully.

  WYATT.

  Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought,

  That built its seat within my captive breast;

  Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,

  Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

  She, that me taught to love, and suffer pain;

  My doubtful hope, and eke my hot desire

  With shamefaced cloak to shadow and restrain,

  Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

  And coward love then to the heart apace