Love

Sonnet CXVI (In Life): He Extols the Laurel and Its Favourite Stream

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

Not all the streams that water the bright earth,
Not all the trees to which its breast gives birth,
Can cooling drop or healing balm impart
To slack the fire which scorches my sad heart,
As one fair brook which ever weeps with me,
Or, which I praise and sing, as one dear tree.
This only help I find amid Love's strife;
Wherefore it me behoves to live my life
In arms, which else from me too rapid goes.
Thus on fresh shore the lovely laurel grows;
Who planted it, his high and graceful thought
'Neath its sweet shade, to Sorga's murmurs, wrote.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXVI (In Life): He Extols the Laurel and Its Favourite Stream.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/147/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXVI (In Life): He Extols the Laurel and Its Favourite Stream.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/147/.

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