Love
Sonnet XLI (In Death): It is Impossible for Him to Describe Her Excellences
Translated by Major Macgregor (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Death
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!
Cite this poem
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/.
Read this poem with the Codex →
More by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
- Canzone III (In Life): Whether or Not He Should Cease to Love Laura
- Sonnet LXXXI (In Life): The Countenance Does Not Always Truly Indicate the Heart
- Sonnet CXLII (In Life): Recollections of Early Love
- Sonnet CCX (In Life): Whoever Beholds Her Must Admit That His Praises Cannot Reach Her Perfection
- Ballata I (In Death): His Grief at Surviving Her is Mitigated by the Consciousness That She Now Knows His Heart