Love

Sonnet XXXIV (In Death): Soaring in Imagination to Heaven, He Meets Laura, and is Happy

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays
She, whom I seek but find on earth no more:
There, fairer still and humbler than before,
I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd maze.
She took me by the hand, and "Thou shalt trace,
If hope not errs," she said, "this happy shore:
I, I am she, thy breast with slights who tore,
And ere its evening closed my day's brief space.
What human heart conceives, my joys exceed;
Thee only I expect, and (what remain
Below) the charms, once objects of thy love."
Why ceased she? Ah! my captive hand why freed?
Such of her soft and hallow'd tones the chain,
From that delightful heaven my soul could scarcely move.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XXXIV (In Death): Soaring in Imagination to Heaven, He Meets Laura, and is Happy.” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/301/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XXXIV (In Death): Soaring in Imagination to Heaven, He Meets Laura, and is Happy.” Translated by Rev. Francis Wrangham. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/301/.

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