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Occhi miei, oscurato è ’l nostro sole - Francesco Petrarch, Some Love Songs [1915]

Edition used:

Some Love Songs of Petrarch, translated and annotated with a Biographical Introduction by William Dudley Foulke (Oxford University Press, 1915).

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Occhi miei, oscurato è ’l nostro sole

  • O eyes of mine, our sun is dark to-day,
  • Or rather rises to heaven and shines in state!
  • There shall we see her yet, for she doth wait
  • Our coming—perhaps she grieves at our delay!
  • O ears of mine, her angel words convey
  • A deeper meaning there than you can know!
  • O feet of mine, ye have no right to go
  • Where she who oft hath drawn you wends her way.
  • Wherefore on me wage ye this bitter strife?
  • It was not I who shattered all your joy
  • Of seeing, hearing, following her in life;
  • Blame rather Death who did your hopes destroy.
  • Or better, praise Him who doth bind and free
  • And after mourning grants felicity.
  • cclxxv

On July 3, 1348, only a few months after Laura’s death, Petrarch’s friend and patron, Cardinal Colonna, was also carried off by the plague. In the following sonnet the column (Colonna) and the laurel (Lauro) signify respectively his friend and his beloved.