"Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thought
So strong a pity for myself appears,
That often it has brought
My 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 wings
With 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 he
Should prostrate, in his own despite, remain.
But, lo! the tender arms
In which I trust are open to me still,
Though fears my bosom fill
Of other's fate, and my own heart alarms,
Which worldly feelings spur, haply, to utmost ill.
"Song! I am here, my heart the while more cold
With fear than frozen snow,
Feels in its certain core death's coming blow;
For thus, in weak self-communing, has roll'd
Of my vain life the better portion by:
Worse burden surely ne'er
Tried 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.
The finest of Petrarch's sonnets are those written after the death of Laura. With this dread event he loses all joy in life; thought of her beauty returns softened by memory and the lapse of time:
"Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led
My raptured heart at will, now here, now there?
Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere,
Which o'er my darkling path their radiance shed?
Where is true worth, and wit, and wisdom fled?
The courteous phrase, the melting accent, where?
Where, grouped in one rich form, the beauties rare,
Which long their magic influence o'er me shed?
Where is the shade, within whose sweet recess
My wearied spirit still forgot its sighs,
And all my thoughts their constant record found?
Where, where is she, my life's sole arbitress?—
Ah, wretched world! and wretched ye, mine eyes
(Of her pure light bereft) which aye with tears are drowned."
Wrangham.
Yet, in his affliction there is a certain comfort, for now that she is dead she seems no longer cold to him, and he often sees and converses with her in heaven:
"Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays
She, whom I seek but find on earth no more:
There, fairer still and humbler than before,
I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd maze.
She took me by the hand, and 'Thou shalt trace,
If hope not errs,' she said, 'this happy shore;
I, I am she, thy breast with slights who tore,
And ere its evening closed my day's brief space.
What human heart conceives, my joys exceed:
Thee only I expect, and (what remain
Below) the charms, once objects of thy love,'
Why ceased she? Ah! my captive hand why freed?
Such of her soft and hallowed tones the chain,
From that delightful heaven my soul could scarcely move."
Wrangham.