Полная версия
Купить и скачатьДобавить В библиотеку
The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch
Автор:
Год написания книги: 2018
Тэги:
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля
CANZONE XXI
I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assaleSELF-CONFLICTCeaseless I think, and in each wasting thoughtSo strong a pity for myself appears,That often it has broughtMy harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,Instant in prayer, I ask of God the wingsWith which the spirit springs,Freed from its mortal coil, to bliss on high;But nothing, to this hour, prayer, tear, or sigh,Whatever man could do, my hopes sustain:And so indeed in justice should it be;Able to stay, who went and fell, that heShould prostrate, in his own despite, remain.But, lo! the tender armsIn which I trust are open to me still,Though fears my bosom fillOf others' fate, and my own heart alarms,Which worldly feelings spur, haply, to utmost ill.One thought thus parleys with my troubled mind—"What still do you desire, whence succour wait?Ah! wherefore to this great,This guilty loss of time so madly blind?Take up at length, wisely take up your part:Tear every root of pleasure from your heart,Which ne'er can make it blest,Nor lets it freely play, nor calmly rest.If long ago with tedium and disgustYou view'd the false and fugitive delightsWith which its tools a treacherous world requites,Why longer then repose in it your trust,Whence peace and firmness are in exile thrust?While life and vigour stay,The bridle of your thoughts is in your power:Grasp, guide it while you may:So clogg'd with doubt, so dangerous is delay,The best for wise reform is still the present hour."Well known to you what rapture still has beenShed on your eyes by the dear sight of herWhom, for your peace it wereBetter if she the light had never seen;And you remember well (as well you ought)Her image, when, as with one conquering bound,Your heart in prey she caught,Where flame from other light no entrance found.She fired it, and if that fallacious heatLasted long years, expecting still one day,Which for our safety came not, to repay,It lifts you now to hope more blest and sweet,Uplooking to that heaven around your headImmortal, glorious spread;If but a glance, a brief word, an old song,Had here such power to charmYour eager passion, glad of its own harm,How far 'twill then exceed if now the joy so strong."Another thought the while, severe and sweet,Laborious, yet delectable in scope,Takes in my heart its seat,Filling with glory, feeding it with hope;Till, bent alone on bright and deathless fame,It feels not when I freeze, or burn in flame,When I am pale or ill,And if I crush it rises stronger still.This, from my helpless cradle, day by day,Has strengthen'd with my strength, grown with my growth,Till haply now one tomb must cover both:When from the flesh the soul has pass'd away,No more this passion comrades it as here;For fame—if, after death,Learning speak aught of me—is but a breath:Wherefore, because I fearHopes to indulge which the next hour may chase,I would old error leave, and the one truth embrace.But the third wish which fills and fires my heartO'ershadows all the rest which near it spring:Time, too, dispels a part,While, but for her, self-reckless grown, I sing.And then the rare light of those beauteous eyes,Sweetly before whose gentle heat I melt,As a fine curb is felt,To combat which avails not wit or force;What boots it, trammell'd by such adverse ties,If still between the rocks must lie her course,To trim my little bark to new emprize?Ah! wilt Thou never, Lord, who yet dost keepMe safe and free from common chains, which bind,In different modes, mankind,Deign also from my brow this shame to sweep?For, as one sunk in sleep,Methinks death ever present to my sight,Yet when I would resist I have no arms to fight.Full well I see my state, in nought deceivedBy truth ill known, but rather forced by Love,Who leaves not him to moveIn honour, who too much his grace believed:For o'er my heart from time to time I feelA subtle scorn, a lively anguish, steal,Whence every hidden thought,Where all may see, upon my brow is writ.For with such faith on mortal things to dote,As unto God alone is just and fit,Disgraces worst the prize who covets most:Should reason, amid things of sense, be lost.This loudly calls her to the proper track:But, when she would obeyAnd home return, ill habits keep her back,And to my view portrayHer who was only born my death to be,Too lovely in herself, too loved, alas! by me.I neither know, to me what term of lifeHeaven destined when on earth I came at firstTo suffer this sharp strife,'Gainst my own peace which I myself have nursed,Nor can I, for the veil my body throws,Yet see the time when my sad life may close.I feel my frame beginTo fail, and vary each desire within:And now that I believe my parting dayIs near at hand, or else not distant lies,Like one whom losses wary make and wise,I travel back in thought, where first the way,The right-hand way, I left, to peace which led.While through me shame and grief,Recalling the vain past on this side spread,On that brings no relief,Passion, whose strength I now from habit, feel,So great that it would dare with death itself to deal.Song! I am here, my heart the while more coldWith fear than frozen snow,Feels in its certain core death's coming blow;For thus, in weak self-communing, has roll'dOf my vain life the better portion by:Worse burden surely ne'erTried mortal man than that which now I bear;Though death be seated nigh,For future life still seeking councils new,I know and love the good, yet, ah! the worse pursue.Macgregor.SONNET CCXXVI
Aspro core e selvaggio, e cruda vogliaHOPE ALONE SUPPORTS HIM IN HIS MISERYHard heart and cold, a stern will past belief,In angel form of gentle sweet allure;If thus her practised rigour long endure,O'er me her triumph will be poor and brief.For when or spring, or die, flower, herb, and leaf.When day is brightest, night when most obscure,Alway I weep. Great cause from Fortune sure,From Love and Laura have I for my grief.I live in hope alone, remembering stillHow by long fall of small drops I have seenMarble and solid stone that worn have been.No heart there is so hard, so cold no will,By true tears, fervent prayers, and faithful loveThat will not deign at length to melt and move.Macgregor.SONNET CCXXVII
Signor mio caro, ogni pensier mi tiraHE LAMENTS HIS ABSENCE FROM LAURA AND COLONNA, THE ONLY OBJECTS OF HIS AFFECTIONMy lord and friend! thoughts, wishes, all inclinedMy heart to visit one so dear to me,But Fortune—can she ever worse decree?—Held me in hand, misled, or kept behind.Since then the dear desire Love taught my mindBut leads me to a death I did not see,And while my twin lights, wheresoe'er I be,Are still denied, by day and night I've pined.Affection for my lord, my lady's love,The bonds have been wherewith in torments longI have been bound, which round myself I wove.A Laurel green, a Column fair and strong,This for three lustres, that for three years moreIn my fond breast, nor wish'd it free, I bore.Macgregor.TO LAURA IN DEATH.
SONNET I
Oimè il bel viso! oimè il soave sguardo!ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF LAURAWoe for the 'witching look of that fair face!The port where ease with dignity combined!Woe for those accents, that each savage mindTo softness tuned, to noblest thoughts the base!And the sweet smile, from whence the dart I trace,Which now leaves death my only hope behind!Exalted soul, most fit on thrones to 've shined,But that too late she came this earth to grace!For you I still must burn, and breathe in you;For I was ever yours; of you bereft,Full little now I reck all other care.With hope and with desire you thrill'd me through,When last my only joy on earth I left:—But caught by winds each word was lost in air.Anon., Ox., 1795.Alas! that touching glance, that beauteous face!Alas! that dignity with sweetness fraught!Alas! that speech which tamed the wildest thought!That roused the coward, glory to embrace!Alas! that smile which in me did encaseThat fatal dart, whence here I hope for nought—Oh! hadst thou earlier our regions sought,The world had then confess'd thy sovereign grace!In thee I breathed, life's flame was nursed by thee,For I was thine; and since of thee bereaved,Each other woe hath lost its venom'd sting:My soul's blest joy! when last thy voice on meIn music fell, my heart sweet hope conceived;Alas! thy words have sped on zephyrs' wings!Wollaston.
CANZONE I
Che debb' io far? che mi consigli, Amore?HE ASKS COUNSEL OF LOVE, WHETHER HE SHOULD FOLLOW LAURA, OR STILL ENDURE EXISTENCEWhat should I do? what, Love, dost thou advise?Full time it is to die:And longer than I wish have I delay'd.My mistress is no more, and with her gone my heart;To follow her, I must needBreak short the course of my afflictive years:To view her here belowI ne'er can hope; and irksome 'tis to wait.Since that my every joyBy her departure unto tears is turn'd,Of all its sweets my life has been deprived.Thou, Love, dost feel, therefore to thee I plain,How grievous is my loss;I know my sorrows grieve and weigh thee down,E'en as our common cause: for on one rockWe both have wreck'd our bark;And in one instant was its sun obscured.What genius can with wordsRightly describe my lamentable state?Ah, blind, ungrateful world!Thou hast indeed just cause with me to mourn;That beauty thou didst hold with her is fled!Fall'n is thy glory, and thou seest it not;Unworthy thou with her,While here she dwelt, acquaintance to maintain.Or to be trodden by her saintly feet;For that, which is so fair,Should with its presence decorate the skiesBut I, a wretch who, reftOf her, prize nor myself nor mortal life,Recall her with my tears:This only of my hope's vast sum remains;And this alone doth still support me here.Ah, me! her charming face is earth become,Which wont unto our thoughtTo picture heaven and happiness above!Her viewless form inhabits paradise,Divested of that veil,Which shadow'd while below her bloom of life,Once more to put it on,And never then to cast it off again;When so much more divine,And glorious render'd, 'twill by us be view'd,As mortal beauty to eternal yields.More bright than ever, and a lovelier fair,Before me she appears,Where most she's conscious that her sight will pleaseThis is one pillar that sustains my life;The other her dear name,That to my heart sounds so delightfully.But tracing in my mind,That she who form'd my choicest hope is deadE'en in her blossom'd prime;Thou knowest, Love, full well what I become:She I trust sees it too, who dwells with truth.Ye sweet associates, who admired her charms,Her life angelical,And her demeanour heavenly upon earthFor me lament, and be by pity wroughtNo wise for her, who, risenTo so much peace, me has in warfare left;Such, that should any shutThe road to follow her, for some length of time,What Love declares to meAlone would check my cutting through the tie;But in this guise he reasons from within:"The mighty grief transporting thee restrain;For passions uncontroll'dForfeit that heaven, to which thy soul aspires,Where she is living whom some fancy dead;While at her fair remainsShe smiles herself, sighing for thee alone;And that her fame, which livesIn many a clime hymn'd by thy tongue, may ne'erBecome extinct, she prays;But that her name should harmonize thy voice;If e'er her eyes were lovely held, and dear."Fly the calm, green retreat;And ne'er approach where song and laughter dwell,O strain; but wail be thine!It suits thee ill with the glad throng to stay,Thou sorrowing widow wrapp'd in garb of woe.Nott.SONNET II
Rotta è l' alta Colonna, e 'l verde LauroHE BEWAILS HIS DOUBLE LOSS IN THE DEATHS OF LAURA, AND OF COLONNAFall'n that proud Column, fall'n that Laurel tree,Whose shelter once relieved my wearied mind;I'm reft of what I ne'er again shall find,Though ransack'd every shore and every sea:Double the treasure death has torn from me,In which life's pride was with its pleasure join'd;Not eastern gems, nor the world's wealth combined,Can give it back, nor land, nor royalty.But, if so fate decrees, what can I more,Than with unceasing tears these eyes bedew,Abase my visage, and my lot deplore?Ah, what is life, so lovely to the view!How quickly in one little morn is lostWhat years have won with labour and with cost!Nott.My laurell'd hope! and thou, Colonna proud!Your broken strength can shelter me no more!Nor Boreas, Auster, Indus, Afric's shore,Can give me that, whose loss my soul hath bow'd:My step exulting, and my joy avow'd,Death now hath quench'd with ye, my heart's twin store;Nor earth's high rule, nor gems, nor gold's bright ore,Can e'er bring back what once my heart endow'dBut if this grief my destiny hath will'd,What else can I oppose but tearful eyes,A sorrowing bosom, and a spirit quell'd?O life! whose vista seems so brightly fill'd,A sunny breath, and that exhaling, diesThe hope, oft, many watchful years have swell'd.Wollaston.
CANZONE II
Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni al giogo anticoUNLESS LOVE CAN RESTORE HER TO LIFE, HE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE HIS SLAVEIf thou wouldst have me, Love, thy slave again,One other proof, miraculous and new,Must yet be wrought by you,Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain—Lift my dear love from earth which hides her now,For whose sad loss thus beggar'd I remain;Once more with warmth endowThat wise chaste heart where wont my life to dwell;And if as some divine, thy influence so,From highest heaven unto the depths of hell,Prevail in sooth—for what its scope below,'Mid us of common race,Methinks each gentle breast may answer well—Rob Death of his late triumph, and replaceThy conquering ensign in her lovely face!Relume on that fair brow the living light,Which was my honour'd guide, and the sweet flame.Though spent, which still the sameKindles me now as when it burn'd most bright;For thirsty hind with such desire did ne'erLong for green pastures or the crystal brook,As I for the dear look,Whence I have borne so much, and—if arightI read myself and passion—more must bear:This makes me to one theme my thoughts thus bind,An aimless wanderer where is pathway none,With weak and wearied mindPursuing hopes which never can be won.Hence to thy summons answer I disdain,Thine is no power beyond thy proper reign.Give me again that gentle voice to hear,As in my heart are heard its echoes still,Which had in song the skillHate to disarm, rage soften, sorrow cheer,To tranquillize each tempest of the mind,And from dark lowering clouds to keep it clear;Which sweetly then refinedAnd raised my verse where now it may not soar.And, with desire that hope may equal vie,Since now my mind is waked in strength, restoreTheir proper business to my ear and eye,Awanting which life mustAll tasteless be and harder than to die.Vainly with me to your old power you trust,While my first love is shrouded still in dust.Give her dear glance again to bless my sight,Which, as the sun on snow, beam'd still for me;Open each window brightWhere pass'd my heart whence no return can be;Resume thy golden shafts, prepare thy bow,And let me once more drink with old delightOf that dear voice the sound,Whence what love is I first was taught to know.And, for the lures, which still I covet so,Were rifest, richest there my soul that bound,Waken to life her tongue, and on the breezeLet her light silken hair,Loosen'd by Love's own fingers, float at ease;Do this, and I thy willing yoke will bear,Else thy hope faileth my free will to snare.Oh! never my gone heart those links of gold,Artlessly negligent, or curl'd with grace,Nor her enchanting face,Sweetly severe, can captive cease to hold;These, night and day, the amorous wish in meKept, more than laurel or than myrtle, green,When, doff'd or donn'd, we seeOf fields the grass, of woods their leafy screen.And since that Death so haughty stands and sternThe bond now broken whence I fear'd to flee,Nor thine the art, howe'er the world may turn,To bind anew the chain,What boots it, Love, old arts to try again?Their day is pass'd: thy power, since lost the armsWhich were my terror once, no longer harms.Thy arms were then her eyes, unrivall'd, whenceLive darts were freely shot of viewless flame;No help from reason came,For against Heaven avails not man's defence;Thought, Silence, Feeling, Gaiety, Wit, Sense,Modest demeanour, affable discourse,In words of sweetest forceWhence every grosser nature gentle grew,That angel air, humble to all and kind,Whose praise, it needs not mine, from all we find;Stood she, or sat, a grace which often threwDoubt on the gazer's mindTo which the meed of highest praise was due—O'er hardest hearts thy victory was sure,With arms like these, which lost I am secure.The minds which Heaven abandons to thy reign,Haply are bound in many times and ways,But mine one only chain,Its wisdom shielding me from more, obeys;Yet freedom brings no joy, though that he burst.Rather I mournful ask, "Sweet pilgrim mine,Alas! what doom divineMe earliest bound to life yet frees thee first:God, who has snatch'd thee from the world so soon,Only to kindle our desires, the boonOf virtue, so complete and lofty, gaveNow, Love, I may derideThy future wounds, nor fear to be thy slave;In vain thy bow is bent, its bolts fall wide,When closed her brilliant eyes their virtue died."Death from thy every law my heart has freed;She who my lady was is pass'd on high,Leaving me free to count dull hours drag by,To solitude and sorrow still decreed."Macgregor.SONNET III
L' ardente nodo ov' io fui, d' ora in oraON THE DEATH OF ANOTHER LADYThat burning toil, in which I once was caught,While twice ten years and one I counted o'er,Death has unloosed: like burden I ne'er bore;That grief ne'er fatal proves I now am taught.But Love, who to entangle me still sought,Spread in the treacherous grass his net once more,So fed the fire with fuel as before,That my escape I hardly could have wrought.And, but that my first woes experience gave,Snarèd long since and kindled I had been,And all the more, as I'm become less green:My freedom death again has come to save,And break my bond; that flame now fades, and fails,'Gainst which nor force nor intellect prevails.Nott.SONNET IV
La vita fugge, e non s' arresta un' oraPAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE ARE NOW ALIKE PAINFUL TO HIMLife passes quick, nor will a moment stay,And death with hasty journeys still draws near;And all the present joins my soul to tear,With every past and every future day:And to look back or forward, so does preyOn this distracted breast, that sure I swear,Did I not to myself some pity bear,I were e'en now from all these thoughts away.Much do I muse on what of pleasures pastThis woe-worn heart has known; meanwhile, t' opposeMy passage, loud the winds around me roar.I see my bliss in port, and torn my mastAnd sails, my pilot faint with toil, and thoseFair lights, that wont to guide me, now no more.Anon., Ox., 1795.Life ever flies with course that nought may stay,Death follows after with gigantic stride;Ills past and present on my spirit prey,And future evils threat on every side:Whether I backward look or forward fare,A thousand ills my bosom's peace molest;And were it not that pity bids me spareMy nobler part, I from these thoughts would rest.If ever aught of sweet my heart has known,Remembrance wakes its charms, while, tempest tost,I mark the clouds that o'er my course still frown;E'en in the port I see the storm afar;Weary my pilot, mast and cable lost,And set for ever my fair polar star.Dacre.
SONNET V
Che fai? che pensi? che pur dietro guardiHE ENCOURAGES HIS SOUL TO LIFT ITSELF TO GOD, AND TO ABANDON THE VANITIES OF EARTHWhat dost thou? think'st thou? wherefore bend thine eyeBack on the time that never shall return?The raging fire, where once 'twas thine to burn,Why with fresh fuel, wretched soul, supply?Those thrilling tones, those glances of the sky,Which one by one thy fond verse strove to adorn,Are fled; and—well thou knowest, poor forlorn!—To seek them here were bootless industry.Then toil not bliss so fleeting to renew;To chase a thought so fair, so faithless, cease:Thou rather that unwavering good pursue,Which guides to heaven; since nought below can please.Fatal for us that beauty's torturing view,Living or dead alike which desolates our peace.Wrangham.SONNET VI
Datemi pace, o duri miei pensieriHE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BESIEGED CITY, AND ACCUSES HIS OWN HEART OF TREASONO tyrant thoughts, vouchsafe me some repose!Sufficeth not that Love, and Death, and Fate,Make war all round me to my very gate,But I must in me armèd hosts enclose?And thou, my heart, to me alone that showsDisloyal still, what cruel guides of lateIn thee find shelter, now the chosen mateOf my most mischievous and bitter foes?Love his most secret embassies in thee,In thee her worst results hard Fate explains,And Death the memory of that blow, to meWhich shatters all that yet of hope remains;In thee vague thoughts themselves with error arm,And thee alone I blame for all my harm.Macgregor.SONNET VII
Occhi miei, oscurato è 'l nostro soleHE ENDEAVOURS TO FIND PEACE IN THE THOUGHT THAT SHE IS IN HEAVENMine eyes! our glorious sun is veil'd in night,Or set to us, to rise 'mid realms of love;There we may hail it still, and haply proveIt mourn'd that we delay'd our heavenward flight.Mine ears! the music of her tones delightThose, who its harmony can best approve;My feet! who in her track so joy'd to move.Ye cannot penetrate her regions bright!But wherefore should your wrath on me descend?No spell of mine hath hush'd for ye the joyOf seeing, hearing, feeling, she was near:Go, war with Death—yet, rather let us bendTo Him who can create—who can destroy—And bids the ready smile succeed the tear.Wollaston.O my sad eyes! our sun is overcast,—Nay, rather borne to heaven, and there is shining,Waiting our coming, and perchance repiningAt our delay; there shall we meet at last:And there, mine ears, her angel words float past,Those who best understand their sweet divining;Howe'er, my feet, unto the search inclining,Ye cannot reach her in those regions vast.Why, then, do ye torment me thus, for, oh!It is no fault of mine, that ye no moreBehold, and hear, and welcome her below;Blame Death,—or rather praise Him and adore,Who binds and frees, restrains and letteth go,And to the weeping one can joy restore.Wrottesley.
SONNET VIII
Poichè la vista angelica serenaWITH HER, HIS ONLY SOLACE, IS TAKEN AWAY ALL HIS DESIRE OF LIFESince her calm angel face, long beauty's fane,My beggar'd soul by this brief parting throwsIn darkest horrors and in deepest woes,I seek by uttering to allay my pain.Certes, just sorrow leads me to complain:This she, who is its cause, and Love too shows;No other remedy my poor heart knowsAgainst the troubles that in life obtain.Death! thou hast snatch'd her hence with hand unkind,And thou, glad Earth! that fair and kindly faceNow hidest from me in thy close embrace;Why leave me here, disconsolate and blind,Since she who of mine eyes the light has been,Sweet, loving, bright, no more with me is seen?Macgregor.SONNET IX
S' Amor novo consiglio non n' apportaHE DESCRIBES HIS SAD STATEIf Love to give new counsel still delay,My life must change to other scenes than these;My troubled spirit grief and terror freeze,Desire augments while all my hopes decay.Thus ever grows my life, by night and day,Despondent, and dismay'd, and ill at ease,Harass'd and helmless on tempestuous seas,With no sure escort on a doubtful way.Her path a sick imagination guides,Its true light underneath—ah, no! on high,Whence on my heart she beams more bright than eye,Not on mine eyes; from them a dark veil hidesThose lovely orbs, and makes me, ere life's spanIs measured half, an old and broken man.Macgregor.SONNET X
Nell' età sua più bella e più fioritaHE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY AREE'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear swayIs wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,My life, my Laura, pass'd from me away;Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:Alas! why left me in this mortal rindThat first of peace, of sin that latest day?As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,So may my soul glad, light, and ready beTo follow her, and thus from troubles flee.Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!Macgregor.SONNET XI
Se lamentar augelli, o Verdi frondeSHE IS EVER PRESENT TO HIMIf the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweepSoft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,Where on the enamell'd bank I sit belowWith thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!Her, form'd in heaven! I see, and hear, and know!Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:"Alas," she pitying says, "ere yet the hour,Why hurry life away with swifter flight?Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?No longer mourn my fate! through death my daysBecome eternal! to eternal lightThese eyes, which seem'd in darkness closed, I raise!"Dacre.Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam,And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,And where with liquid lapse the lucid streamAcross the fretted rock is heard to flow,Pensive I lay: when she whom earth concealsAs if still living to my eye appears;And pitying Heaven her angel form revealsTo say, "Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears.Ah! why, sad lover, thus before your timeIn grief and sadness should your life decay,And, like a blighted flower, your manly primeIn vain and hopeless sorrow fade away?Ah! yield not thus to culpable despair;But raise thine eyes to heaven and think I wait thee there!"Charlotte Smith.
Moved by the summer wind when all is still,The light leaves quiver on the yielding spray;Sighs from its flowery bank the lucid rill,While the birds answer in their sweetest lay.Vain to this sickening heart these scenes appear:No form but hers can meet my tearful eyes;In every passing gale her voice I hear;It seems to tell me, "I have heard thy sighs.But why," she cries, "in manhood's towering prime,In grief's dark mist thy days, inglorious, hide?Ah! dost thou murmur, that my span of timeHas join'd eternity's unchanging tide?Yes, though I seem'd to shut mine eyes in night,They only closed to wake in everlasting light!"Anne Bannerman.
