Love

Ballata: Of a continual Death in Love

by Guido Cavalcanti c. 1255–1300

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

Love

Though thou, indeed, hast quite forgotten ruth,
Its steadfast truth my heart abandons not;
But still its thought yields service in good part
To that hard heart in thee.

Alas! who hears believes not I am so.
Yet who can know? of very surety, none.
From Love is won a spirit, in some wise,
Which dies perpetually:

And, when at length in that strange ecstasy
The heavy sigh will start,
There rains upon my heart
A love so pure and fine,
That I say: “Lady, I am wholly thine.”

MLA

Cavalcanti, Guido. “Ballata: Of a continual Death in Love.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/13/.

Chicago

Cavalcanti, Guido. “Ballata: Of a continual Death in Love.” Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/cavalcanti/13/.

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