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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  He Revisits Vaucluse

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

He Revisits Vaucluse

By Petrarch (1304–1374)

“Sento l’ aura mia antica, e i dolci colli”

Translation of Anne Bannerman

ONCE more, ye balmy gales, I feel you blow;

Again, sweet hills, I mark the morning beams

Gild your green summits; while your silver streams

Through vales of fragrance undulating flow.

But you, ye dreams of bliss, no longer here

Give life and beauty to the glowing scene;

For stern remembrance stands where you have been,

And blasts the verdure of the blooming year.

O Laura! Laura! in the dust with thee,

Would I could find a refuge from despair!

Is this thy boasted triumph, Love, to tear

A heart thy coward malice dares not free;

And bid it live, while every hope is fled,

To weep among the ashes of the dead?