Love
Sonnet CIV (In Life): Love's Inconsistency
Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life
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.
Cite this poem
MLA
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CIV (In Life): Love's Inconsistency.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/133/.
Chicago
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CIV (In Life): Love's Inconsistency.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/133/.
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More by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
- Sonnet XXII (In Life): On the Same Subject
- Sonnet LXXVIII (In Life): To a Friend, Counselling Him to Abandon Earthly Pleasures
- Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love
- Sonnet CCXI (In Life): Melancholy Recollections and Presages
- Sonnet LIV (In Death): To the Memory of Giacomo Colonna, Who Died Before Petrarch Could Reply to a Letter of His