Love

Sonnet: He interprets Dante's Dream, related in the first Sonnet of the Vita Nuova

by Guido Cavalcanti c. 1255–1300

Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1861) · From The Early Italian Poets (1861)

Love

Unto my thinking, thou beheld'st all worth,
All joy, as much of good as man may know,
If thou wert in his power who here below
Is honour's righteous lord throughout this earth.
Where evil dies, even there he has his birth,
Whose justice out of pity's self doth grow.
Softly to sleeping persons he will go,
And, with no pain to them, their hearts draw forth.
Thy heart he took, as knowing well, alas!
That Death had claim'd thy lady for her prey:
In fear whereof, he fed her with thy heart.
But when he seem'd in sorrow to depart,
Sweet was thy dream; for by that sign, I say,
Surely the opposite shall come to pass.

MLA

Cavalcanti, Guido. “Sonnet: He interprets Dante's Dream, related in the first Sonnet of the Vita Nuova.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/0/.

Chicago

Cavalcanti, Guido. “Sonnet: He interprets Dante's Dream, related in the first Sonnet of the Vita Nuova.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/0/.

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