Sonnet XXII
Read 'Sonnet XXII' by 'Francesco Petrarch' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.
SONNET XXII.
Come va 'l mondo! or mi diletta e piace.
HE BLESSES LAURA FOR HER VIRTUE.
How goes the world! now please me and delightWhat most displeased me: now I see and feelMy trials were vouchsafed me for my weal,That peace eternal should brief war requite.O hopes and wishes, ever fond and slight,In lovers most, which oftener harm than heal!Worse had she yielded to my warm appealWhom Heaven has welcomed from the grave's dark night.But blind love and my dull mind so misled,I sought to trespass even by main forceWhere to have won my precious soul were dead.Blessèd be she who shaped mine erring courseTo better port, by turns who curb'd and luredMy bold and passionate will where safety was secured.
Macgregor. Alas! this changing world! my present joyWas once my grief's dark source, and now I feelMy sufferings pass'd were but my soul to healIts fearful warfare—peace's soft decoy.Poor human wishes! Hope, thou fragile toyTo lovers oft! my woe had met its seal,Had she but hearken'd to my love's appeal,Who, throned in heaven, hath fled this world's alloy.[Pg 252]My blinded love, and yet more stubborn mind,Resistless urged me to my bosom's shame,And where my soul's destruction I had met:But blessèd she who bade life's current findA holier course, who still'd my spirit's flameWith gentle hope that soul might triumph yet.
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