Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Ferrara | | To the Duke Alphonso, Asking to Be Liberated | | Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) |
| | Translated by Richard Henry Wilde
A NEW Ixion upon fortune’s wheel, | |
| Whether I sink profound, or rise sublime, | |
| One never-ceasing martyrdom I feel, | |
| The same in woe, though changing all the time. | |
| I wept above, where sunbeams sport and climb | 5 |
| The vines, and through their foliage sighs the breeze, | |
| I burned and froze, languished, and prayed in rhyme. | |
| Nor could your ire, nor my own grief appease. | |
| Now in my prison, deep and dim, have grown | |
| My torments greater still and keener far, | 10 |
| As if all sharpened on the dungeon-stone: | |
| Magnanimous Alphonso! burst the bar, | |
| Changing my fate, and not my cell alone, | |
| And let my fortune wheel me where you are! | | | | |
|
|
