Translation by Jonathan Holmes
of a poem by Petrarch

 

Sonnet 292, from Petrarch’s Canzoniere.

Those eyes, warmed by my ever-burning words;
Those arms, those palms, those fair brows and the face
That separated my soul from my self
And set me far apart from other men;
The knife-light halo of shimmering gold,
The illumination of your angel’s smile,
That made of this poor earth a paradise;
All are now a little dust, sensing nothing.

And yet I live, my life a constant grief,
Dark without the light I loved beyond all,
Enduring in my body’s shattered vessel.

I now discard all my songs of love;
The vein of my inspiration is bled,
And my tired lyre is tuned to weeping.