Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79. | | | | Vaucluse | | He Leaves Vaucluse, but His Spirit Remains There with Laura | | Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) |
| | Petrarch’s Sonnets on Vaucluse. I.
Translated by R. G. Macgregor
THE LOVED hills where I left myself behind, | |
| Whence ever ’t was so hard my steps to tear, | |
| Before me rise; at each remove I bear | |
| The dear load to my lot by Love consigned. | |
| Often I wonder inly in my mind, | 5 |
| That still the fair yoke holds me, which despair | |
| Would vainly break, that yet I breathe this air; | |
| Though long the chain, its links but closer bind. | |
| And as a stag, sore struck by hunter’s dart, | |
| Whose poisoned iron rankles in his breast, | 10 |
| Flies and more grieves the more the chase is pressed, | |
| So I, with Love’s keen arrow in my heart, | |
| Endure at once my death and my delight, | |
| Racked with long grief, and weary with vain flight. | | | | |
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