Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)

Translated by Hartley Coleridge
Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi.

LONELY and pensive o’er the lonely strand,

“With wandering steps and slow,” I loiter on,

My eyes at watch, to warn me to be gone

If mark of human foot impress the sand;

Else would my piteous plight be rudely scann’d,

And curious folk would stare to see the wan

And deathlike images of joy foregone,

And how I inly waste like smouldering brand.

Or I would fain believe the tangled wood

Which girds the small field on the mountain side

The one sole witness to my crazy mood;

But ah! what sandy waste, or forest dim,

My haunt obscure from Love can ever hide?

Where’er I think, I converse hold with him.