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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  On His Return to Vaucluse after Laura’s Death

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Vaucluse

On His Return to Vaucluse after Laura’s Death

By Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)

Petrarch’s Sonnets on Vaucluse. V.
Translated by Francis Wrangham

VALLEY, which long hast echoed with my cries;

Stream, which my flowing tears have often fed;

Beasts, fluttering birds, and ye who in the bed

Of Cabrieres’ wave display your speckled dyes;

Air, hushed to rest and softened by my sighs;

Dear path, whose mazes lone and sad I tread;

Hill of delight,—though now delight is fled,—

To rove whose haunts Love still my foot decoys;

Well I retain your old unchanging face!

Myself how changed! in whom, for joy’s light throng,

Infinite woes their constant mansion find!

Here bloomed my bliss; and I your tracks retrace,

To mark whence upward to her heaven she sprung,

Leaving her beauteous spoil, her robe of flesh behind!