| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | No, Not to Thee | | By Vincenzo da Filicaja (1642–1707) |
| | Translated by James Glassford, of Dougalston
“I am stricken, and I am the blow.”
NO, not to thee nor to thy hate I owe, | |
| Nor ever did or ever shall, my shame; | |
| O fortune, I acquit thee of the blow, | |
| Not thy injustice or thy spite I blame. | |
| I am both mark and shaft, and drew the bow; | 5 |
| I forged the bolt, and lighted up the flame; | |
| And the black cloud whose peal has rattled so, | |
| From the dark smoke of my offences came: | |
| Foul vapour from an impure heart that flows, | |
| And, issuing thence in exhalations thin, | 10 |
| Recoils in thunder there from whence it rose. | |
| Thus my reproach and grief turn all within, | |
| My guilt against myself the javelin throws, | |
| My sin the lash with which I lash my sin. | | | | |
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