Love

Sonnet III (In Life): He Blames Love for Wounding Him on a Holy Day (Good Friday)

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life

Love

'Twas on the morn, when heaven its blessed ray
In pity to its suffering master veil'd,
First did I, Lady, to your beauty yield,
Of your victorious eyes th' unguarded prey.
Ah! little reck'd I that, on such a day,
Needed against Love's arrows any shield;
And trod, securely trod, the fatal field:
Whence, with the world's, began my heart's dismay.
On every side Love found his victim bare,
And through mine eyes transfix'd my throbbing heart;
Those eyes, which now with constant sorrows flow:
But poor the triumph of his boasted art,
Who thus could pierce a naked youth, nor dare
To you in armour mail'd even to display his bow!

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet III (In Life): He Blames Love for Wounding Him on a Holy Day (Good Friday).” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/2/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet III (In Life): He Blames Love for Wounding Him on a Holy Day (Good Friday).” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/2/.

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