| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | Quitting Vaucluse | | By Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) |
| | Translated by Charles Bagot Cayley
A LIFE of solitude I’ve ever sought | |
| (This many a field and forest knows, and rill), | |
| Lest among deaf and purblind wits, who ill | |
| Have kept the road to heaven, I should be caught. | |
| And if in this my will had gone for aught, | 5 |
| Sorgue, amid many a fair, umbrageous hill, | |
| Might from the Tuscan airs detain me still— | |
| Sorgue, that to help my tears and songs hath wrought. | |
| But Fortune, being constantly my foe, | |
| Driveth me thither back, where much I fret, | 10 |
| To see in mire my goodly treasure lie; | |
| But to my hand, thence writing, she doth show | |
| More friendship; this may have some fitness yet; | |
| Love saw it, and my lady knows, and I. | | | | |
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