Love

Sonnet CXXXVI (In Life): His Tongue is Tied by Excess of Passion

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life

Love

Such vain thought as wonted to mislead me
In desert hope, by well-assurèd moan,
Makes me from company to live alone,
In following her whom reason bids me flee.
She fleeth as fast by gentle cruelty;
And after her my heart would fain be gone,
But armèd sighs my way do stop anon,
'Twixt hope and dread locking my liberty;
Yet as I guess, under disdainful brow
One beam of ruth is in her cloudy look:
Which comforteth the mind, that erst for fear shook:
And therewithal bolded I seek the way how
To utter the smart I suffer within;
But such it is, I not how to begin.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXXXVI (In Life): His Tongue is Tied by Excess of Passion.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/168/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXXXVI (In Life): His Tongue is Tied by Excess of Passion.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/168/.

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