Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79. | | | | Vaucluse | | Vaucluse | | Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) |
| | Petrarch’s Sonnets on Vaucluse. II.
Translated by R. G. Macgregor
NOWHERE before could I so well have seen | |
| Her whom my soul most craves since lost to view; | |
| Nowhere in so great freedom could have been | |
| Breathing my amorous lays ’neath skies so blue; | |
| Never with depths of shade so calm and green | 5 |
| A valley found for lover’s sigh more true; | |
| Methinks a spot so lovely and serene | |
| Love not in Cyprus nor in Gnidos knew. | |
| All breathes one spell, all prompts and prays that I | |
| Like them should love,—the clear sky, the calm hour, | 10 |
| Winds, waters, birds, the green bough, the gay flower,— | |
| But thou, beloved, who call’st me from on high, | |
| By the sad memory of thine early fate, | |
| Pray that I hold the world and these sweet snares in hate. | | | | |
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