| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | II. Petrarca | | By Sir John Hanmer (1809–1881) |
| | | NOT vainly didst thou sing thy lifetime long, | |
| Petrarca, of a fair and gentle dame; | |
| And with the winds fan love’s enduring flame, | |
| Wandering the hills and the quick streams among; | |
| For Time hath listened to thy passionate song; | 5 |
| Whose years like pilgrims to Valchiusa came. | |
| Sighing thou wentest all thy days; but Fame | |
| Filled her clear trump with thine imagined wrong; | |
| Then from the banks of that Provençal river, | |
| Soared loftier accents, ’neath the Alps’ blue gleam; | 10 |
| And at thy voice rose one who would deliver | |
| His Rome and thine; O noble poet-dream! | |
| The Belisarian weeds did stir and shiver | |
| On her old walls at that electric theme. | | | | |
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