Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.
Lonely and PensiveFrancesco Petrarca (13041374)
Translated by Hartley Coleridge
Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi.
Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi.
L
“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.