Оценить:
 Рейтинг: 4.5

The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch

Год написания книги
2018
<< 1 ... 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 ... 201 >>
На страницу:
43 из 201
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля
You hold in hand, and yet your captive please:
Ready to sail wherever winds may blow,
By me most prized whate'er to you I owe.

    Macgregor.

SONNET XLIX

Se voi poteste per turbati segni

HE ENTREATS LAURA NOT TO HATE THE HEART FROM WHICH SHE CAN NEVER BE ABSENT

If, but by angry and disdainful sign,
By the averted head and downcast sight,
By readiness beyond thy sex for flight,
Deaf to all pure and worthy prayers of mine,
Thou canst, by these or other arts of thine,
'Scape from my breast—where Love on slip so slight
Grafts every day new boughs—of such despite
A fitting cause I then might well divine:
For gentle plant in arid soil to be
Seems little suited: so it better were,
And this e'en nature dictates, thence to stir.
But since thy destiny prohibits thee
Elsewhere to dwell, be this at least thy care
Not always to sojourn in hatred there.

    Macgregor.

SONNET L

Lasso, che mal accorto fui da prima

HE PRAYS LOVE TO KINDLE ALSO IN HER THE FLAME BY WHICH HE IS UNCEASINGLY TORMENTED

Alas! this heart by me was little known
In those first days when Love its depths explored,
Where by degrees he made himself the lord
Of my whole life, and claim'd it as his own:
I did not think that, through his power alone,
A heart time-steel'd, and so with valour stored,
Such proof of failing firmness could afford,
And fell by wrong self-confidence o'erthrown.
Henceforward all defence too late will come,
Save this, to prove, enough or little, here
If to these mortal prayers Love lend his ear.
Not now my prayer—nor can such e'er have room—
That with more mercy he consume my heart,
But in the fire that she may bear her part.

    Macgregor.

SESTINA III

L' aere gravato, e l' importuna nebbia

HE COMPARES LAURA TO WINTER, AND FORESEES THAT SHE WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME

The overcharged air, the impending cloud,
Compress'd together by impetuous winds,
Must presently discharge themselves in rain;
Already as of crystal are the streams,
And, for the fine grass late that clothed the vales,
Is nothing now but the hoar frost and ice.

And I, within my heart, more cold than ice,
Of heavy thoughts have such a hovering cloud,
As sometimes rears itself in these our vales,
Lowly, and landlock'd against amorous winds,
Environ'd everywhere with stagnant streams,
When falls from soft'ning heaven the smaller rain.

Lasts but a brief while every heavy rain;
And summer melts away the snows and ice,
When proudly roll th' accumulated streams:
Nor ever hid the heavens so thick a cloud,
Which, overtaken by the furious winds,
Fled not from the first hills and quiet vales.

But ah! what profit me the flowering vales?
Alike I mourn in sunshine and in rain,
Suffering the same in warm and wintry winds;
For only then my lady shall want ice
At heart, and on her brow th' accustom'd cloud,
When dry shall be the seas, the lakes, and streams.

While to the sea descend the mountain streams,
As long as wild beasts love umbrageous vales,
O'er those bright eyes shall hang th' unfriendly cloud
My own that moistens with continual rain;
And in that lovely breast be harden'd ice
Which forces still from mine so dolorous winds.

Yet well ought I to pardon all the winds
But for the love of one, that 'mid two streams
Shut me among bright verdure and pure ice;
So that I pictured then in thousand vales
The shade wherein I was, which heat or rain
Esteemeth not, nor sound of broken cloud.

<< 1 ... 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 ... 201 >>
На страницу:
43 из 201