Love

Sonnet CXXXI (In Life): Night Brings Peace to All Save Him

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

O'er earth and sky her lone watch silence keeps,
And bird and beast in stirless slumber lie,
Her starry chariot Night conducts on high,
And in its bed the waveless ocean sleeps.
I wake, muse, burn, and weep; of all my pain
The one sweet cause appears before me still;
War is my lot, which grief and anger fill,
And thinking but of her some rest I gain.
Thus from one bright and living fountain flows
The bitter and the sweet on which I feed;
One hand alone can harm me or can heal:
And thus my martyrdom no limit knows,
A thousand deaths and lives each day I feel,
So distant are the paths to peace which lead.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXXXI (In Life): Night Brings Peace to All Save Him.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/163/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXXXI (In Life): Night Brings Peace to All Save Him.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/163/.

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