English

THE SEVENTEENTH SUMMER

Alas! the seventeenth summer comes and goes,
And still with undiminished heat I burn;
Yet of this heart my anxious eyes discern
How winter rimes it, though the red flame glows.
They tell the truth: " Till Habit change her hose
Years bleach the hair." The veins feel summer turn
To snow, though not less hard the passions churn
Against the flesh, no less flames winter's rose.
Ah, speed the sparkling day when, no more flayed
With the fierce dooms and furious ecstasies,

TO ANTONIO OF FERRARA WHO, IN AN ELEGY, HAD PREMATURELY MOURNED PETRARCH'S DEATH

Those pious verses, which revealed so well
Thy genius and thy generous spirit, so
Inflamed my mind to a responsive glow
That instantly I set about to tell
How, though Death has not struck as yet — that knell
None shall escape, that final definite blow —
Nevertheless I too, and with no woe,
Had almost found the gateway to his hell:
But back I came once more because I read
Writ large across the lintel that the last

WHEREIN, DESPITE HIS WRETCHEDNESS, HE PROTESTS HIS PASSION REMAINS UNALTERED

My sixteenth year of sighs its round has run:
Alone I stand, poised on the treacherous brink
Where Age swoops down; and yet, or so I think,
My testing time is only just begun.
Ah, sweet it is to live, to be undone;
Hard though life be, more suns in Heaven may sink
To vanquish misery: else Death may drink
Those eyes I praise, those lips that praises shun.
Here am I now who would be found elsewhere;
More would I wish, and yet no more I would;

IF BUT HE MIGHT CATCH SIGHT OF LAURA'S DWELLING, HIS SIGHS WOULD THE MORE RAPIDLY REACH HER

If this wide valley-guarded wall of stone,
From which its present name we closely trace,
Had been by nature levelled, overthrown,
Its back to Babel and to Rome its face,
Then had my sighs an easier passage known
To where their hope abides in shining grace:
Now they move singly, though one grief they moan;
Each struggles through the stone to the same place.
Once there, I must observe, such welcome greets

LAURA'S IMAGE CONFRONTS HIM EVERYWHITHER

With inexpressible sweetness overflowing,
Which from that lovely face mine eyes drew streaming,
And sealed as fast, for very rapture gleaming,
Never to dwell on lesser beauty's glowing,
Then, Love at Love's beloved perfection knowing,
I left it: now my mind devotes its dreaming
To her alone; what is not to her seeming,
It shuts away from any sight or showing.
Deep in a dell secluded from all peering,
Sole consolation of my sad heart's sighing,

WHEREIN LAURA, TURNING TO SALUTE HIM, THE SUN IN A JEALOUS FIT RETREATS BEHIND A CLOUD

Between two lovers I espied a lady,
Proud, though of virtue: one of those with her
Was he to whom the heavens and earth defer;
The sun on his side stood, I on the shady.
Jealous he grew, then scarce an instant stayed he,
But fled — and all my heart was set astir
To feel her eyes on me: hope knew the spur
Of joy. Now will she prove less cold ... Already
The envious fear which sprang up in my heart
At the first glimpse of my gold rival felt

WHEREIN, QUITTING ROME, HE CRAVES ONLY LAURA'S PITY, ONLY COLONNA'S CONTINUED PROSPERITY

From impious Babylon, where all shame is dead,
All goodness banished to extremest bounds,
Nurse of black errors, lair of brutish hounds,
I, too, in hope of longer life have fled.
Here, and alone, where Love goes garlanded
I follow, weaving flowers and fervent sounds,
And hold communion with myself in rounds
Of thought and hope — the exile's only bread.
Not fortune nor the multitude I need,
Nor personal esteem nor worldly ease,

WHEREIN THE VERIEST GLIMPSE OF VAUCLUSE BANISHES FROM MEMORY ALL THE DANGERS OF HIS JOURNEY

O my Sennuccio, I but half live here
(Were I but wholly hers and you content!)
Where out of tempest my true course I bent,
When suddenly the clouds and winds drew near.
I would reveal, would make this matter clear:
Why I dread not the fiery firmament
And why unmitigated, far from spent,
As fierce as ever my old wounds appear.
When first I reached Love's realm, when first I saw
Where Laura in her glory walked alive,

WHEREIN HE CONFIDES TO HIS FRIEND HIS LADY'S VARIABLENESS AND HIS DESPAIR

To you, Sennuccio, would I declare
What sad uncertainties, what griefs I find:
I flame — and though to Laura's moods resigned,
In me there is no changing anywhere.
First all humility, then here and there;
Now meek, now haughty; cruel now, now kind;
Soft as a brooding dove she speaks her mind;
Then flash her eyes with lights that flay the air.
Here would she sweetly sing, there sit awhile;
Here press her step, and there her step reprove;

WHEREIN HER SALUTATION DRIVES ALL ELSE FROM HIS MIND

She in whose face is shown my stricken heart,
As with Love's reveries I sat alone,
Glittered before me: O fire in flesh and bone!
I rose, with forehead pale and lips apart.
Who, having seen me stare and felt me start,
Addressed toward me such a look soft-blown
As in Jove's fiercest frenzy might unthrone
His wrath and from his fingers tear the dart.
I trembled; she moved on in her sweet way,
Shedding a grace and speaking words whose sound,