Among so many beauteous, could espy, SONNET ON A WATER-PARTY OF LADIES, AMONG WHOM WAS LAURA, GOING DOWN THE RHONE IN A BOAT, AND RETURNING IN A CARRIAGE. TWELVE dames, with toil not unbecoming worn, To load its dress,* not Jason enter'd one As home they moved. O what a glorious sight! SONNET. THAT Window where my Sun is often seen Refulgent, and the world's at morning's hours;t And that, where Boreas blows, when Winter lowers, * This is supposed to censure the fashions of the age. + These particulars are related of Laura's house: Maurice de Seves, in 1540, says, that in the Fauxbourg of the Cordeliers, a small ancient house, built with yellow stone, was called Laura's house. It was watered by the Sorga, and was the second house to the left in the Faux And the short days reveal a clouded scene; That bench of stone where, with a pensive mein, My Laura sits, forgetting Beauty's powers; Haunts where her shadow strikes the walls of flowers, And her feet press the paths or herbage green: The place where Love assail'd me with success. bourg, after passing the portail Peint. It adjoined to a tavern called the Cheval Blanc, and which was in existence not long before 1764, the date of the Memoires de Petrarque. PETRARCH. PART II. POEMS AFTER THE DEATH OF LAURA.* ODE. Ir thou would's have me sofer, Love, thy yoke, Again (tity wish I see, new power begia To shew, and fame unvoned wiz Lest at the trial I appear unbroke. Fly to the sacred grave, and warm wila That beart, the seat of Virtue, and these eyes *The day is mentioned in 1327, when Petrarch fr saw Laura; and she died on the same day, in 14 Whose loss now beggars, as she made me bless'd. Thy power to Heaven, and to the dark abyss That power surmised, we feel its force in this!) Again thy banners where she looks display. Kindle those matchless eyes, again to beam, Which were my honour'd guide; and the soft flame That cheer'd the gloom of life, the same That slumbering warms. How would it waking burn? Never the wearied hart so eager came, As I sought forth the charms, I deem For sad Experience from the past may learn, We follow one, till soon it mocks our choice. |