Love

Sonnet CXCV (In Life): He Fears That an Illness Which Has Attacked the Eyes of Laura May Deprive Him of Their Sight

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

I lived so tranquil, with my lot content,
No sorrow visited, nor envy pined,
To other loves if fortune were more kind
One pang of mine their thousand joys outwent;
But those bright eyes, whence never I repent
The pains I feel, nor wish them less to find,
So dark a cloud and heavy now does blind,
Seems as my sun of life in them were spent.
O Nature! mother pitiful yet stern,
Whence is the power which prompts thy wayward deeds,
Such lovely things to make and mar in turn?
True, from one living fount all power proceeds:
But how couldst Thou consent, great God of Heaven,
That aught should rob the world of what thy love had given?

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXCV (In Life): He Fears That an Illness Which Has Attacked the Eyes of Laura May Deprive Him of Their Sight.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/230/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CXCV (In Life): He Fears That an Illness Which Has Attacked the Eyes of Laura May Deprive Him of Their Sight.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/230/.

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