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 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; 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: 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 LATRA. ODE. If thou wouldst have me suffer, Love, by yoke, Again (thy wah I see, new power begin To shew, and fame unwormed win Lest at the trial I appear unbroke. Fly to the sacred grave, and warm within That heart, the seat of Virtue, and these eyes * The day is mentioned in 1327, when Petrarch fot I saw Laura; and she died on the same day in قدو Whose loss now beggars, as she made me bless'd. Thy power to Heaven, and to the dark abyss Or other worlds, if we but note That power surmised, we feel its force in this!) Snatch from the cruel King his beauteous prey; 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, We follow one, till soon it mocks our choice. |