Love

Sonnet XLI (In Death): It is Impossible for Him to Describe Her Excellences

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

The wonder, high and new, that, in our days,
Dawn'd on the world, yet would not there remain,
Which heaven but show'd to us to snatch again
Better to blazon its own starry ways;
That to far times I her should paint and praise
Love wills, who prompted first my passionate strain;
But now wit, leisure, pen, page, ink in vain
To the fond task a thousand times he sways.
My slow rhymes struggle not to life the while;
I feel it, and whoe'er to-day below,
Or speak or write of love will prove it so.
Who justly deems the truth beyond all style,
Here silent let him muse, and sighing say,
Blessèd the eyes who saw her living day!

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XLI (In Death): It is Impossible for Him to Describe Her Excellences.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/308/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XLI (In Death): It is Impossible for Him to Describe Her Excellences.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/308/.

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