Explore "Mentre Che 'L Cor Dagli Amorosi Vermi" by Francesco Petrarca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
HAD SHE NOT DIED SO EARLY, HE WOULD HAVE LEARNED TO PRAISE HER MORE / WORTHILY.
While on my heart the worms consuming prey'd / Of Love, and I with all his fire was caught; / The steps of my fair wild one still I sought / To trace o'er desert mountains as she stray'd; / And much I dared in bitter strains to upbraid / Both Love and her, whom I so cruel thought; / But rude was then my genius, and untaught / My rhymes, while weak and new the ideas play'd.
Dead is that fire; and cold its ashes lie / In one small tomb; which had it still grown on / E'en to old age, as oft by others felt, / Arm'd with the power of rhyme, which wretched I / E'en now disclaim, my riper strains had won / E'en stones to burst, and in soft sorrows melt.
ANON., OX., 1795.