The Poetry Corner

Sonnet CXXXIII.

By Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

S' io fossi stato fermo alla spelunca. TO ONE WHO DESIRED LATIN VERSE OF HIM. Still had I sojourn'd in that Delphic cave Where young Apollo prophet first became, Verona, Mantua were not sole in fame, But Florence, too, her poet now might have: But since the waters of that spring no more Enrich my land, needs must that I pursue Some other planet, and, with sickle new, Reap from my field of sticks and thorns its store. Dried is the olive: elsewhere turn'd the stream Whose source from famed Parnassus was derived. Whereby of yore it throve in best esteem. Me fortune thus, or fault perchance, deprived Of all good fruit--unless eternal Jove Shower on my head some favour from above. MACGREGOR.