Sonnet

From Visions

FrancescoPetrarch(1304-1374)

Being one day at my window all alone,

So manie strange things happened me to see,

As much as it grieveth me to thinke thereon.

At my right hand a hynde appear’d to mee,

So faire as mote the greatest god delite;

Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace.

Of which the one was blacke, the other white:

With deadly force so in their cruell race

They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,

That at the last, and in short time, I spide,

Under a rocke, where she alas, opprest,

Fell to the ground, and there untimely dide.

Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie

Oft makes me wayle so hard a desire.

(Trans. Edmund Spenser)

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