Love

Sonnet XXII (In Death): He Blesses Laura for Her Virtue

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

How goes the world! now please me and delight
What most displeased me: now I see and feel
My trials were vouchsafed me for my weal,
That peace eternal should brief war requite.
O hopes and wishes, ever fond and slight,
In lovers most, which oftener harm than heal!
Worse had she yielded to my warm appeal
Whom Heaven has welcomed from the grave's dark night.
But blind love and my dull mind so misled,
I sought to trespass even by main force
Where to have won my precious soul were dead.
Blessèd be she who shaped mine erring course
To better port, by turns who curb'd and lured
My bold and passionate will where safety was secured.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XXII (In Death): He Blesses Laura for Her Virtue.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/289/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XXII (In Death): He Blesses Laura for Her Virtue.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/289/.

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