Where still meek innocence must suffer wrong:
And these, – oh, shame avow’d! –
Are of the lawless hordes no tie can hold:
Fame tells how Marius’ sword
Erewhile their bosoms gored, –
Nor has Time’s hand aught blurr’d the record proud!
When they who, thirsting, stoop’d to quaff the flood,
With the cool waters mix’d, drank of a comrade’s blood!
Great Caesar’s name I pass, who o’er our plains
50 Pour’d forth the ensanguin’d tide,
Drawn by our own good swords from out their veins;
But now – nor know I what ill stars preside, –
Heaven holds this land in hate!
To you the thanks! – whose hands control her helm! –
You, whose rash feuds despoil
Of all the beauteous earth the fairest realm!
Are ye impell’d by judgment, crime, or fate,
To oppress the desolate?
From broken fortunes, and from humble toil,
60 The hard-earn’d dole to wring,
While from afar ye bring
Dealers in blood, bartering their souls for hire?
In truth’s great cause I sing,
Nor hatred nor disdain my earnest lay inspire.
Nor mark ye yet, confirm’d by proof on proof,
Bavaria’s perfidy,
Who strikes in mockery, keeping death aloof?
(Shame, worse than aught of loss, in honour’s eye!)
While ye, with honest rage, devoted pour
70 Your inmost bosom’s gore! –
Yet give one hour to thought,
And ye shall own, how little he can hold
Another’s glory dear, who sets his own at nought
O Latin blood of old!
Arise, and wrest from obloquy thy fame,
Nor bow before a name
Of hollow sound, whose power no laws enforce!
For if barbarians rude
Have higher minds subdued,
80 Ours! ours the crime! – not such wise Nature’s course.
Ah! is not this the soil my foot first press’d?
And here, in cradled rest,
Was I not softly hush’d? – here fondly rear’d?
Ah! is not this my country? – so endear’d
By every filial tie!
In whose lap shrouded both my parents lie!
Oh! by this tender thought,
Your torpid bosoms to compassion wrought,
Look on the people’s grief!
90 Who, after God, of you expect relief;
And if ye but relent,
Virtue shall rouse her in embattled might,
Against blind fury bent,
Nor long shall doubtful hand the unequal fight;
For no, – the ancient flame
Is not extinguish’d yet, that raised the Italian name!
Mark, sovereign Lords! how Time, with pinion strong,
Swift hurries life along!
E’en now, behold! Death presses on the rear.
100 We sojourn here a day – the next, are gone!
The soul disrobed – alone,
Must shuddering seek the doubtful pass we fear.
Oh! at the dreaded bourne,
Abase the lofty brow of wrath and scorn,
(Storms adverse to the eternal calm on high!)
And ye, whose cruelty
Has sought another’s harm, by fairer deed
Of heart, or hand, or intellect, aspire
To win the honest meed
110 Of just renown – the noble mind’s desire!
Thus sweet on earth the stay!
Thus to the spirit pure, unbarr’d is Heaven’s way!
My song! with courtesy, and numbers sooth,
Thy daring reasons grace,
For thou the mighty, in their pride of place,
Must woo to gentle ruth,
Whose haughty will long evil customs nurse,
Ever to truth averse!
Thee better fortunes wait,
120 Among the virtuous few – the truly great!
Tell them – but who shall bid my terrors cease?
Peace! Peace! on thee I call! return, O heaven-born Peace!
P129: Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte
From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought;
If ’mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom’d a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart is still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear,
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
10 The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe’er has proved the lover’s state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.
On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng’d resort
Of man turn fearfully my eyes aside;
At each lone step thoughts ever new arise
Of her I love, who oft with cruel sport
Will mock the pangs I bear, the tears, the sighs;
20 Yet e’en these ills I prize,
Though bitter, sweet, nor would they were removed:
For my heart whispers me, Love yet has power
To grant a happier hour:
Perchance, though self-despised, thou yet art loved:
E’en then my breast a passing sigh will heave,
Ah! when, or how, may I a hope so wild believe?
Where shadows of high rocking pines dark wave
I stay my footsteps, and on some rude stone
With thought intense her beauteous face engrave;
30 Roused from the trance, my bosom bathed I find
With tears, and cry, Ah! whither thus alone
Hast thou far wander’d, and whom left behind?
But as with fixèd mind
On this fair image I impassion’d rest,
And, viewing her, forget awhile my ills,
Love my rapt fancy fills;
In its own error sweet the soul is blest,
While all around so bright the visions glide;
O! might the cheat endure, I ask not aught beside.
40 Her form portray’d within the lucid stream
Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn,
Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam
So lovely fair, that Leda’s self might say,
Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn
A star when cover’d by the solar ray:
And, as o’er wilds I stray
Where the eye nought but savage nature meets,
There Fancy most her brightest tints employs;
But when rude truth destroys
50 The loved illusion of those dreamèd sweets,
I sit me down on the cold rugged stone,
Less cold, less dead than I, and think, and weep alone.
Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime,
On which no neighbouring height its shadow flings,
Led by desire intense the steep I climb;
And tracing in the boundless space each woe,
Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings,
Tears, that bespeak the heart o’erfraught, will flow:
While, viewing all below,
60 From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide
The beauteous form, still absent and still near!
Then, chiding soft the tear,
I whisper low, haply she too has sigh’d
That thou art far away: a thought so sweet
Awhile my labouring soul will of its burthen cheat.
Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine b
ound,
Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene,
There by a murmuring stream may I be found,
Whose gentle airs around
70 Waft grateful odours from the laurel green;
Nought but my empty form roams here unblest,
There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my breast.
P292: Gli occhi di ch’io parlai sí caldamente
The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mould,
So long the theme of my impassion’d lay,
Charms which so stole me from myself away,
That strange to other men the course I hold:
The crispèd locks of pure and lucid gold,
The lightning of the angelic smile, whose ray
To earth could all of paradise convey,
A little dust are now! – to feeling cold!
And yet I live! – but that I live bewail,
10 Sunk the loved light that through the tempest led
My shatter’d bark, bereft of mast and sail:
Hush’d be for aye the song that breathed love’s fire!
Lost is the theme on which my fancy fed,
And turned to mourning my once tuneful lyre.
P312: Né per sereno ciel ir vaghe stelle
NOT skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,
Nor gallant ships o’er tranquil ocean dancing,
Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,
Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade,
Nor tidings new of happiness delay’d,
Nor poesie, Love’s witchery enhancing,
Nor lady’s song beside clear fountain glancing,
In beauty’s pride, with chastity array’d;
Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show,
10 Shall touch my heart, now cold within her tomb
Who was erewhile my life and light below!
So heavy – tedious – sad – my days unblest,
That I, with strong desire, invoke Death’s gloom,
Her to behold, whom ne’er to have seen were best!
P315: Tutta la mia fiorita e verde etade
All my green years and golden prime of man
Had pass’d away, and with attemper’d sighs
My bosom heaved – ere yet the days arise
When life declines, contracting its brief span.
Already my loved enemy began
To lull suspicion, and in sportive guise,
With timid confidence, though playful, wise,
In gentle mockery my long pains to scan:
The hour was near when Love, at length, may mate
10 With chastity; and, by the dear one’s side,
The lover’s thoughts and words may freely flow:
Death saw, with envy, my too happy state,
E’en – its fair promise – and, with fatal pride,
Strode in the midway forth, an armèd foe!
THOMAS CAMPBELL (1777–1844)
Campbell was a prolific poet and essayist. He became the Rector of Glasgow University. His biography of Petrarch, Life of Petrarch (1841), promoted the Romantic image of Petrarch to an ever-widening audience, even in this 13-line sonnet.
P159: In qual parte del ciel, in quale ydea
In what ideal world or part of heaven
Did Nature find the model of the face
And form, so fraught with loveliness and grace,
In which, to our creation, she has given
Her prime proof of creative power above?
What fountain nymph or goddess ever let
Such lovely tresses float of gold refined
Upon the breeze, or in a single mind,
Where have so many virtues ever met,
10 E’en though those charms have slain my bosom’s weal?
He knows not love who has not seen her eyes
Turn when she sweetly speaks, or smiles, or sighs,
Or how the power of love can hurt or heal.
SUSAN WOLLASTON (fl. 1841)
Wollaston published One Hundred Sonnets Translated after the Italian of Petrarca in 1841, claiming to be the first ‘complete selection’ from the Canzoniere in English (Watson, English Petrarchans, p. 13). She outdoes Mary Robinson in the use of exclamation marks!
P263: Arbor victoriosa, triumfale
Blest laurel! fadeless and triumphant tree!
Of kings and poets thou the fondest pride!
How much of joy and sorrow’s changing tide
In my short breath hath been awaked by thee!
Lady, the will’s sweet sovereign! thou canst see
No bliss but virtue, where thou dost preside;
Love’s chain, his snare, thou dost alike deride;
From man’s deceit thy wisdom sets thee free.
Birth’s native pride, and treasure’s precious store,
10 (Whose bright possession we so fondly hail)
To thee as burthens valueless appear:
Thy beauty’s excellence – (none viewed before)
Thy soul had wearied – but thou lov’st the veil,
That shrine of purity adorneth here.
MAJOR ROBERT GUTHRIE MACGREGOR (1805–69)
Macgregor has the honour of being the first British person to translate all of the Canzoniere, with the exception of P105, which he considered ‘almost untranslatable into English verse, possibly even into acceptable prose’. He spent his active life in India and describes himself as ‘of the Bengal List retired’. In 1851 he brought out his Odes of Petrarch, but hearing of the impending Bohn Library edition hastened his complete translation into print as Indian Leisure (1854), a title that sums up the compartmentalization of his life. We do not know how he came to his passion for Petrarch, but he claims that he had ‘much benefitted by reading with Professor Pistgrucchi, of King’s College, somewhat more than one-third of the sonnets’. Although we do not know the circumstances, Bohn reprints 262 of his translations. Text from Bohn’s Illustrated Library (1859).
P264: I’vo pensando, e nel penser m’assale
21. Self-Conflict
CEASELESS I think, and in each wasting thought
So strong a pity for myself appears,
That often it has brought
My harass’d heart to new yet natural tears;
Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,
Instant in prayer, I ask of God the wings
With which the spirit springs,
Freed from its mortal coil, to bliss on high;
But nothing, to this hour, prayer, tear, or sigh,
10 Whatever man could do, my hopes sustain:
And so indeed in justice should it be;
Able to stay, who went and fell, that he
Should prostrate, in his own despite, remain.
But, lo! the tender arms
In which I trust are open to me still,
Though fears my bosom fill
Of others’ fate, and my own heart alarms,
Which worldly feelings spur, haply, to utmost ill.
One thought thus parleys with my troubled mind –
20 ‘What still do you desire, whence succour wait?
Ah! wherefore to this great,
This guilty loss of time so madly blind?
Take up at length, wisely take up your part:
Tear every root of pleasure from your heart,
Which ne’er can make it blest,
Nor lets it freely play, nor calmly rest.
If long ago with tedium and disgust
You view’d the false and fugitive delights
With which its tools a treacherous world requites,
30 Why longer then repose in it your trust,
Whence peace and firmness are in exile thrust?
While life and vigour stay,
The bridle of your thoughts is in your power:
Grasp, guide it while you may:
So clogg’d with doubt, so dangerous is delay,
The best for wise reform i
s still the present hour.
‘Well known to you what rapture still has been
Shed on your eyes by the dear sight of her
Whom, for your peace it were
40 Better if she the light had never seen;
And you remember well (as well you ought)
Her image, when, as with one conquering bound,
Your heart in prey she caught,
Where flame from other light no entrance found.
She fired it, and if that fallacious heat
Lasted long years, expecting still one day,
Which for our safety came not, to repay,
It lifts you now to hope more blest and sweet.
Uplooking to that heaven around your head
50 Immortal, glorious spread;
If but a glance, a brief word, an old song,
Had here such power to charm
Your eager passion, glad of its own harm,
How far ‘twill then exceed if now the joy so strong.’
Another thought the while, severe and sweet,
Laborious, yet delectable in scope,
Takes in my heart its seat,
Filling with glory, feeding it with hope;
Till, bent alone on bright and deathless fame
60 It feels not when I freeze, or burn in flame,
When I am pale or ill,
And if I crush it rises stronger still.
This, from my helpless cradle, day by day,
Has strengthen’d with my strength, grown with my growth
Till haply now one tomb must cover both:
When from the flesh the soul has pass’d away
No more this passion comrades it as here;
For fame – if, after death,
Learning speak aught of me – is but a breath:
70 Wherefore, because I fear
Hopes to indulge which the next hour may chase,
I would old error leave, and the one truth embrace.
But the third wish which fills and fires my heart
O’ershadows all the rest which near it spring:
Time, too, dispels a part,
While, but for her, self-reckless grown, I sing.
And then the rare light of those beauteous eyes,
Sweetly before whose gentle heat I melt,
As a fine curb is felt,
80 To combat which avails not wit or force;
What boots it, trammell’d by such adverse ties,
If still between the rocks must lie her course,
To trim my little bark to new emprize?
Ah! wilt Thou never, Lord, who yet dost keep
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