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Home  »  Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)

Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.

Love’s Fidelity

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)

Translated by Earl of Surrey

SET me whereas the sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice:

In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;

In presence prest of people mad or wise;

Set me in high, or yet in low degree;

In longest night, or in the shortest day;

In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be;

In lusty youth, or when my hairs are grey:

Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell,

In hill or dale, or in the foaming flood;

Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell,

Sick or in health, in evil fame or good,

Hers will I be; and only with this thought

Content myself although my chance be nought.