05.05.2009, 18:31
PETRARCA.
Not vainly didst thou sing, thy lifetime long,
Petrarca, of a fair and gentle dame ;
And with the winds fan love's enduring flame;
Wandering the hills and the quick streams among ;
For Time hath listened to thy passionate song ;
Whose years like pilgrims to Valchiusa came;
Sighing thou wentest all thy days ; but Fame
Filled her clear trump with thine imagined wrong.
Then from the banks of that Proven9al river,
Soared loftier accents, 'neath the Alps' blue gleam ;
And at thy voice rose one, who would deliver
His Rome and thine; oh noble poet-dream :
The Belisarian weeds did stir and shiver
On her old walls, at that electric theme.
Not vainly didst thou sing, thy lifetime long,
Petrarca, of a fair and gentle dame ;
And with the winds fan love's enduring flame;
Wandering the hills and the quick streams among ;
For Time hath listened to thy passionate song ;
Whose years like pilgrims to Valchiusa came;
Sighing thou wentest all thy days ; but Fame
Filled her clear trump with thine imagined wrong.
Then from the banks of that Proven9al river,
Soared loftier accents, 'neath the Alps' blue gleam ;
And at thy voice rose one, who would deliver
His Rome and thine; oh noble poet-dream :
The Belisarian weeds did stir and shiver
On her old walls, at that electric theme.