Love
Sonnet CXVI (In Life): He Extols the Laurel and Its Favourite Stream
Translated by Major Macgregor (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life
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.
Cite this poem
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/.
Read this poem with the Codex →
More by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
- Sonnet LI (In Life): The Fall
- Sonnet CIX (In Life): The Courage and Timidity of Love
- Sonnet CLXXXI (In Life): He Lives Destitute of All Hope Save That of Rendering Her Immortal
- Sonnet XXII (In Death): He Blesses Laura for Her Virtue
- Sonnet LXXXVIII (In Death): Beholding in Fancy the Shade of Laura, He Tells Her the Loss That the World Sustained in Her Departure