Love

Sonnet LIX (In Life): If His Passion Still Increase, He Must Soon Die

by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304–1374

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

Love

If, of this fourteenth year wherein I sigh,
The end and middle with its opening vie,
Nor air nor shade can give me now release,
I feel mine ardent passion so increase:
For Love, with whom my thought no medium knows,
Beneath whose yoke I never find repose,
So rules me through these eyes, on mine own ill
Too often turn'd, but half remains to kill.
Thus, day by day, I feel me sink apace,
And yet so secretly none else may trace,
Save she whose glances my fond bosom tear.
Scarcely till now this load of life I bear
Nor know how long with me will be her stay,
For death draws near, and hastens life away.

MLA

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet LIX (In Life): If His Passion Still Increase, He Must Soon Die.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/78/.

Chicago

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch). “Sonnet LIX (In Life): If His Passion Still Increase, He Must Soon Die.” Translated by Major Macgregor. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/petrarch/78/.

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