Love
Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love
Translated by Major Macgregor (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life
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.
Cite this poem
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)
- Ballata V (In Life): Her Kind Salute Saved Him from Death
- Sonnet CV (In Life): He Inveighs Against the Court of Rome
- Sonnet CLXXVII (In Life): Though So Long Love's Faithful Servant, His Only Reward Has Been Tears
- Sonnet XVIII (In Death): She Returns in Pity to Comfort Him with Her Advice
- Sonnet LXXXIV (In Death): Weary of Life, Now That She is No Longer with Him, He Devotes Himself to God