Love

Sonnet CCXV (In Life): He Sighs for Those Glances from Which, to His Grief, Fortune Ever Delights to Withdraw Him

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

O angel looks! O accents of the skies!
Shall I or see or hear you once again?
O golden tresses, which my heart enchain,
And lead it forth, Love's willing sacrifice!
O face of beauty given in anger's guise,
Which still I not enjoy, and still complain!
O dear delusion! O bewitching pain!
Transports, at once my punishment and prize!
If haply those soft eyes some kindly beam
(Eyes, where my soul and all my thoughts reside)
Vouchsafe, in tender pity to bestow;
Sudden, of all my joys the murtheress tried,
Fortune with steed or ship dispels the gleam;
Fortune, with stern behest still prompt to work my woe.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CCXV (In Life): He Sighs for Those Glances from Which, to His Grief, Fortune Ever Delights to Withdraw Him.” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/252/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet CCXV (In Life): He Sighs for Those Glances from Which, to His Grief, Fortune Ever Delights to Withdraw Him.” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/252/.

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