Love

Sonnet XLIV (In Life): Few Are the Sweets, but Many the Bitters of Love

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt (in Bohn, 1879) · From To Laura in Life

Love

Ever my hap is slack and slow in coming,
Desire increasing, ay my hope uncertain
With doubtful love, that but increaseth pain;
For, tiger-like, so swift it is in parting.
Alas! the snow black shall it be and scalding,
The sea waterless, and fish upon the mountain,
The Thames shall back return into his fountain,
And where he rose the sun shall take [his] lodging,
Ere I in this find peace or quietness;
Or that Love, or my Lady, right wisely,
Leave to conspire against me wrongfully.
And if I have, after such bitterness,
One drop of sweet, my mouth is out of taste,
That all my trust and travail is but waste.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XLIV (In Life): Few Are the Sweets, but Many the Bitters of Love.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/56/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet XLIV (In Life): Few Are the Sweets, but Many the Bitters of Love.” Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/56/.

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