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Home  »  The Sonnets of Europe  »  Guido Cavalcanti (1255–1300)

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

To Dante

Guido Cavalcanti (1255–1300)

Translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley

RETURNING from its daily quest, my Spirit

Changed thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find:

It grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind

Those ample virtues which it did inherit,

Has lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude

Of blind and madding men: I then loved thee—

I loved thy lofty songs, and that sweet mood

When thou wert faithful to thyself and me.

I dare not now, through thy degraded state,

Own the delight thy strains inspire—in vain

I seek what once thou wert—we cannot meet

As we were wont. Again, and yet again,

Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly,

And leave to thee thy true integrity.