To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXXXI.

A poem by Francesco Petrarca

Non può far morte il dolce viso amaro.

SINCE HER DEATH HE HAS CEASED TO LIVE.


Death cannot make that beauteous face less fair,
But that sweet face may lend to death a grace;
My spirit's guide! from her each good I trace;
Who learns to die, may seek his lesson there.
That holy one! who not his blood would spare,
But did the dark Tartarean bolts unbrace;
He, too, doth from my soul death's terrors chase:
Then welcome, death! thy impress I would wear.
And linger not! 'tis time that I had fled;
Alas! my stay hath little here avail'd,
Since she, my Laura blest, resign'd her breath:
Life's spring in me hath since that hour lain dead,
In her I lived, my life in hers exhaled,
The hour she died I felt within me death!

WOLLASTON.