Saturday
Apr132013
Petrarch, "S'io credesse per morte essere scarco"
Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 20:44
A work ("If I believed through death myself released") by this Italian poet. You can read the original here.
If I believed through death myself released,
Of loving thoughts which bind me to this earth,
Already placed would be my hands inert,
Each dull limb burdenless beneath the peat;
But since I fear a passageway would bend
'Twixt crying eyes, from war to bloody war,
So I remain, alas, behind a door,
Amidst a serried path of doubtful end.
Enough time's laps'd for final bowstrings drawn
In arrows merciless, tint'd in their aim
With others' blood, nay bathed, my whole to breach;
Yet deafest Love I still cannot beseech,
Who left me color'd in his painted frame,
Forgetful now to call me to his pawn.
tagged Petrarch in Italian literature and film, Poems, Translation
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