Explore "Chi Vuol Veder Quantunque Puo Natura" by Francesco Petrarca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
WHOEVER BEHOLDS HER MUST ADMIT THAT HIS PRAISES CANNOT REACH HER / PERFECTION.
Who wishes to behold the utmost might / Of Heaven and Nature, on her let him gaze, / Sole sun, not only in my partial lays, / But to the dark world, blind to virtue's light! / And let him haste to view; for death in spite / The guilty leaves, and on the virtuous preys; / For this loved angel heaven impatient stays; / And mortal charms are transient as they're bright! / Here shall he see, if timely he arrive, / Virtue and beauty, royalty of mind, / In one bless'd union join'd. Then shall he say / That vainly my weak rhymes to praise her strive, / Whose dazzling beams have struck my genius blind: -- / He must for ever weep if he delay!