| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | “That which opposes in my mind doth die” | | By Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) |
| | Translated by Charles Eliot Norton
From the “Vita Nuova”
THAT which opposes in my mind doth die | |
| Whene’er, O beauteous Joy, I win thy sight: | |
| And I hear Love when I to you am nigh, | |
| Who saith, “Depart, if death doth thee affright.” | |
| My face the colour of my heart displays, | 5 |
| Which, fainting, any chance support doth seek; | |
| And, as I tremble in my drunken daze, | |
| “Die! die!” the very stones appear to shriek. | |
| Sin he commits who then may look on me, | |
| If my alarmëd soul he doth not aid, | 10 |
| At least by showing that he feeleth grief | |
| For that deep woe, which you deriding see, | |
| And which is in thy dying look displayed, | |
| Of eyes that long in death for their relief. | | | | |
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