Explore "Questo Nostro Caduco E Fragil Bene" by Francesco Petrarca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
NATURE DISPLAYED IN HER EVERY CHARM, BUT SOON WITHDREW HER FROM SIGHT.
This gift of beauty which a good men name, / Frail, fleeting, fancied, false, a wind, a shade, / Ne'er yet with all its spells one fair array'd, / Save in this age when for my cost it came.
Not such is Nature's duty, nor her aim, / One to enrich if others poor are made, / But now on one is all her wealth display'd, / Ladies, your pardon let my boldness claim.
Like loveliness ne'er lived, or old or new, / Nor ever shall, I ween, but hid so strange, / Scarce did our erring world its marvel view, / So soon it fled; thus too my soul must change / The little light vouchsafed me from the skies / Only for pleasure of her sainted eyes.
MACGREGOR.