Sonnet XX
SONNET XX.
Se l' onorata fronde, che prescrive.
TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE POETRY.
If the world-honour'd leaf, whose green defiesThe wrath of Heaven when thunders mighty Jove,Had not to me prohibited the crownWhich wreathes of wont the gifted poet's brow,I were a friend of these your idols too,Whom our vile age so shamelessly ignores:But that sore insult keeps me now aloofFrom the first patron of the olive bough:For Ethiop earth beneath its tropic sunNe'er burn'd with such fierce heat, as I with rageAt losing thing so comely and beloved.Resort then to some calmer fuller fount,For of all moisture mine is drain'd and dry,Save that which falleth from mine eyes in tears.
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