Love

Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

The time and scene where I a slave became
When I remember, and the knot so dear
Which Love's own hand so firmly fasten'd here,
Which made my bitter sweet, my grief a game;
My heart, with fuel stored, is, as a flame
Of those soft sighs familiar to mine ear,
So lit within, its very sufferings cheer;
On these I live, and other aid disclaim.
That sun, alone which beameth for my sight,
With his strong rays my ruin'd bosom burns
Now in the eve of life as in its prime,
And from afar so gives me warmth and light,
Fresh and entire, at every hour, returns
On memory the knot, the scene, the time.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/174/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/174/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)