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The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch SONNET L.Lasso, che mal accorto fui da prima.HE PRAYS LOVE TO KINDLE ALSO IN HER THE FLAME BY WHICH HE IS UNCEASINGLY TORMENTED.
Alas! this heart by me was little
known
In those first days when Love its depths explored,
Where by degrees he made himself the lordOf my whole
life, and claim'd it as his own:I did not think
that, through his power alone,A heart time-steel'd,
and so with valour stored,Such proof of failing
firmness could afford,And fell by wrong
self-confidence o'erthrown.Henceforward all defence
too late will come,Save this, to prove, enough or
little, hereIf to these mortal prayers Love lend his
ear.Not now my prayer—nor can such e'er have room—
That with more mercy he consume my heart,But in the
fire that she may bear her part.
Macgregor.
SESTINA III.L' aere gravato, e l' importuna nebbia.HE COMPARES LAURA TO WINTER, AND FORESEES THAT SHE WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME.
The overcharged air, the impending cloud,
Compress'd together by impetuous winds,Must presently discharge themselves in rain;Already as of crystal are the streams,And, for the fine grass late that clothed the vales,Is nothing now but the hoar frost and ice.
And I, within my heart, more cold than ice,Of heavy thoughts have such a hovering cloud,As sometimes rears itself in these our vales,Lowly, and landlock'd against amorous winds,Environ'd everywhere with stagnant streams,When falls from soft'ning heaven the smaller rain.
Lasts but a brief while every heavy rain;And summer melts away the snows and ice,When proudly roll th' accumulated streams:Nor ever hid the heavens so thick a cloud,Which, overtaken by the furious winds,Fled not from the first hills and quiet vales.
But ah! what profit me the flowering vales?Alike I mourn in sunshine and in rain,Suffering the same in warm and wintry winds;For only then my lady shall want iceAt heart, and on her brow th' accustom'd cloud,When dry shall be the seas, the lakes, and streams.
While to the sea descend the mountain streams,As long as wild beasts love umbrageous vales,O'er those bright eyes shall hang th' unfriendly cloudMy own that moistens with continual rain;And in that lovely breast be harden'd iceWhich forces still from mine so dolorous winds.
Yet well ought I to pardon all the windsBut for the love of one, that 'mid two streamsShut me among bright verdure and pure ice;So that I pictured then in thousand valesThe shade wherein I was, which heat or rainEsteemeth not, nor sound of broken cloud.
But fled not ever cloud before the winds,As I that day: nor ever streams with rainNor ice, when April's sun opens the vales.
Macgregor.
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