Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)

Translated by Charles Bagot Cayley

A LIFE of solitude I’ve ever sought

(This many a field and forest knows, and rill),

Lest among deaf and purblind wits, who ill

Have kept the road to heaven, I should be caught.

And if in this my will had gone for aught,

Sorgue, amid many a fair, umbrageous hill,

Might from the Tuscan airs detain me still—

Sorgue, that to help my tears and songs hath wrought.

But Fortune, being constantly my foe,

Driveth me thither back, where much I fret,

To see in mire my goodly treasure lie;

But to my hand, thence writing, she doth show

More friendship; this may have some fitness yet;

Love saw it, and my lady knows, and I.