Petrarch in translation--an obscure question about #307
A friend sent me this translation from Petrarch, sonnet no. 307, asking who the translator might be. We both believe it must be pre-twentieth century, but google searches have not dug up a name (though the translation is quoted)
Does anyone have a clue about this? Here’s the poem:
O lovely little bird, I watch you fly,
And grieving for the past I hear you sing.
I see the night and winter hastening,
I see the day and happy summer die.
If you could hear my heart in answer cry
Its pain to your sad tune, you’d swiftly wing
Into my bosom, comfort you would bring
And we would weep together, you and I.
’Tis no equality of woe I fear;
Perhaps she lives whom you bewail; from me
Have greedy death and heaven snatched my dear,
But the dark autumn evening hour sets free
The memory of many a banished year
So let us talk of the past then, tenderly.
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