Love
Sonnet LXXI (In Death): He Describes the Apparition of Laura
Translated by Major Macgregor (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Death
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!"
Cite this poem
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/.
Read this poem with the Codex →
More by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
- Sonnet XLV (In Life): To His Friend Agapito, with a Present
- Sonnet CII (In Life): The Contradictions of Love
- Sonnet CLXXII (In Life): He Consoles Himself with the Thought That He Will Be Envied by Posterity
- Sonnet X (In Death): He Desires to Die, That His Soul May Be with Her, as His Thoughts Already Are
- Sonnet LXXXI (In Death): Since Her Death He Has Ceased to Live