Explore "L' Arbor Gentil Che Forte Amai Molt' Anni" by Francesco Petrarca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
IMPRECATION AGAINST THE LAUREL.
The graceful tree I loved so long and well, / Ere its fair boughs in scorn my flame declined, / Beneath its shade encouraged my poor mind / To bud and bloom, and 'mid its sorrow swell.
But now, my heart secure from such a spell, / Alas, from friendly it has grown unkind! / My thoughts entirely to one end confined, / Their painful sufferings how I still may tell.
What should he say, the sighing slave of love, / To whom my later rhymes gave hope of bliss, / Who for that laurel has lost all -- but this? / May poet never pluck thee more, nor Jove / Exempt; but may the sun still hold in hate / On each green leaf till blight and blackness wait.
MACGREGOR.