Explore "Self-Conflict (I' Vo Pensando, E Nel Pensier M' Assale)" by Francesco Petrarca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thought / So strong a pity for myself appears, / That often it has brought / My harass'd heart to new yet natural tears; / Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh, / Instant in prayer, I ask of God the wings / With which the spirit springs, / Freed from its mortal coil, to bliss on high; / But nothing, to this hour, prayer, tear, or sigh, / Whatever man could do, my hopes sustain: / And so indeed in justice should it be; / Able to stay, who went and fell, that he / Should prostrate, in his own despite, remain.
But, lo! the tender arms / In which I trust are open to me still, / Though fears my bosom fill / Of others' fate, and my own heart alarms, / Which worldly feelings spur, haply, to utmost ill.