Love

Sonnet CXI (In Life): To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

Translated by Major Macgregor (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life

Love

Whene'er you speak of her in that soft tone
Which Love himself his votaries surely taught,
My ardent passion to such fire is wrought,
That e'en the dead reviving warmth might own:
Where'er to me she, dear or kind, was known
There the bright lady is to mind now brought,
In the same bearing which, to waken thought,
Needed no sound but of my sighs alone.
Half-turn'd I see her looking, on the breeze
Her light hair flung; so true her memories roll
On my fond heart of which she keeps the keys;
But the surpassing bliss which floods my soul
So checks my tongue, to tell how, queen-like, there,
She sits as on her throne, I never dare.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXI (In Life): To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/142/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXI (In Life): To One Who Spoke to Him of Laura.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/142/.

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