English

If the birds are making lamentation, or the green banks are moved by a little wind of summer, or you can hear the waters making a stir by the shores that are green and flowery.
That's where I do be stretched out thinking Heaven shows me though hidden in the earth of love, writing my songs, and herself that I set my eyes on, and hear the way that she feels my sighs and makes an answer to me.
" Alas, " I hear her say, " why are you using yourself up before the time is come, and pouring out a stream of tears so sad and doleful.

In the years of her age the most beautiful and the most flowery — the time Love has his mastery — Laura, who was my life, has gone away leaving the earth stripped and desolate. She has gone up into the Heavens, living and beautiful and naked, and from that place she is keeping her Lordship and her rein upon me, and I crying out: Ohone, when will I see that day breaking that will be my first day with herself in Paradise?

What is it you're thinking, lonesome heart? For what is it you're turning back ever and always to times that are gone away from you? For what is it you're throwing sticks on the fire when it is your own self that is burning?
The little looks and sweet words you've taken one by one and written down among your songs, are gone up into the Heavens, and it's late, you know well, to go seeking them on the face of the earth.

Life is flying from me, not stopping an hour, and Death is making great strides following my track. The days about me and the days passed over me, are bringing me desolation, and the days to come will be the same surely.
All things that I am bearing in mind, and all things I am in dread of, are keeping me in troubles, in this way one time, in that way another time, so that if I wasn't taking pity on my own self it's long ago I'd have given up my life.

Loose to the wind her golden tresses streamed,
Forming bright waves with amorous zephyr's sights;
And though averted now, her charming eyes
Then with warm love and melting pity beamed.
Was I deceived? Ah surely, nymph divine,
That fine suffusion on thy cheek was love!
What wonder then those lovely tints should move,
Should fire this heart, this tender heart of mine?
Thy soft melodious voice, thy air, thy shape,
Were of a goddess, not a mortal maid;
Yet though thy charms, thy heavenly charms should fade,

X

The long love that in my thought doth harbour
And in mine heart doth keep his residence
Into my face presseth with bold pretence
And therein campeth, spreading his banner.
She that me learneth to love and suffer
And will that my trust and lust's negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness taketh displeasure.
Wherewithal unto the heart's forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth and not appeareth.
What may I do when my master feareth,

Ye vales and woods! fair scenes of happier hours;
Ye feather'd people, tenants of the grove;
And you, bright stream! befringed with shrubs and flowers;
Behold my grief, ye witnesses of love!

For ye beheld my infant passion rise,
And saw thro' years unchang'd my faithful flame;
Now cold, in dust, the beauteous object lies,
And you, ye conscious scenes, are still the same!

While busy Memory still delights to dwell
On all the charms these bitter tears deplore,
And with a trembling hand describes too well

Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam,
And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,
And where, with liquid lapse, the lucid stream
Across the fretted rock is heard to flow,
Pensive I lay: when she whom earth conceals,
As if still living to my eyes appears,
And pitying Heaven her angel form reveals,
To say — " Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears;
Ah! why, sad lover! thus before your time,
In grief and sadness should your life decay,
And like a blighted flower, your manly prime
In vain and hopeless sorrow fade away?

Oh! place me where the burning noon
Forbids the wither'd flower to blow;
Or place me in the frigid zone,
On mountains of eternal snow:
Let me pursue the steps of Fame,
Or Poverty's more tranquil road;
Let youth's warm tide my veins inflame,
Or sixty winters chill my blood:
Tho' my fond soul to heaven were flown,
Or tho' on earth 'tis doom'd to pine,
Prisoner or free — obscure or known,
My heart, O Laura, still is thine.
Whate'er my destiny may be,
That faithful heart still burns for thee!

I fynde no peace and all my warr is done,
I fere and hope, I burne and freise like yse;
I fley above the wynde yet can I not arrise,
And noght I have and all the worold I seson.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I scape nowise;
Nor letteth me lyve nor dye at my devise,
And yet of deth it gyveth me occasion.
Withoute Iyen, I se, and withoute tong I plain,
I desire to perisshe, and yet I aske helthe,
I love an othre, and thus I hate my self,
I fede me in sorrowe and laughe in all my pain,