| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | “Riding some days agone in piteous mood” | | By Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) |
| | Translated by Sir Theodore Martin
From the “Vita Nuova”
RIDING some days agone in piteous mood, | |
| Heart sick and weary with the journey’s fret, | |
| Full in the middle of the way I met | |
| Love in a pilgrim’s habit, worn and rude. | |
| His air, methought, was saddened and subdued, | 5 |
| As he had been despoilèd of his sway; | |
| And he came, sadly sighing, up the way, | |
| With downcast eyes, unwilling to be viewed. | |
| When he beheld me, calling me by name, | |
| I come, he said, from yon far region, now, | 10 |
| Where dwelt thy heart, while that to me seemed fit, | |
| And for new service back am bringing it. | |
| Then I so wrapt in thought of him became, | |
| That he had vanished, and I know not how. | | | | |
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