| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | Those Eyes, ’neath Which | | By Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) |
| | Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Gli occhi di ch’ io parlai
THOSE eyes, ’neath which my passionate rapture rose, | |
| The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile | |
| Could my own soul from its own self beguile, | |
| And in a separate world of dreams enclose, | |
| The hair’s bright tresses, full of golden glows, | 5 |
| And the soft lightning of the angelic smile | |
| That changed this earth to some celestial isle, | |
| Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. | |
| And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, | |
| Left dark without the light I loved in vain, | 10 |
| Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn; | |
| Dead is the source of all my amorous strain, | |
| Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn, | |
| And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain. | | | | |
|
|
