Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79. | | | | Ardennes | | THe Forest of Ardennes | | Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) |
| | Translated by R. G. Macgregor
AMID the wildwood’s lone and difficult ways, | |
| Where travel at great risk e’en men in arms, | |
| I pass secure,—for only me alarms | |
| That sun which darts of living love the rays, | |
| Singing fond thoughts in simple lays to her | 5 |
| Whom time and space so little hide from me. | |
| E’en here her form, nor hers alone, I see, | |
| But maids and matrons in each beech and fir. | |
| Methinks I hear her where the bird’s soft moan, | |
| The sighing leaves, I hear, or through the dell | 10 |
| Where its bright lapse some murmuring rill pursues. | |
| Rarely of shadowing wood the silence lone, | |
| The solitary horror, pleased so well, | |
| Except that of my sun too much I lose. | | | | |
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