Love

Sonnet LXXI (In Death): He Describes the Apparition of Laura

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

Food wherewithal my lord is well supplied,
With tears and grief my weary heart I've fed;
As fears within and paleness o'er me spread,
Oft thinking on its fatal wound and wide:
But in her time with whom no other vied,
Equal or second, to my suffering bed
Comes she to look on whom I almost dread,
And takes her seat in pity by my side.
With that fair hand, so long desired in vain,
She check'd my tears, while at her accents crept
A sweetness to my soul, intense, divine.
"Is this thy wisdom, to parade thy pain?
No longer weep! hast thou not amply wept?
Would that such life were thine as death is mine!"

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet LXXI (In Death): He Describes the Apparition of Laura.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/343/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet LXXI (In Death): He Describes the Apparition of Laura.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/343/.

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