Canzoniere/Poem XXIV

by Petrarch

SONNET

_Se l' onorata fronde, che prescrive._

TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE POETRY.

      If the world-honour'd leaf, whose green defies
    The wrath of Heaven when thunders mighty Jove,
    Had not to me prohibited the crown
    Which 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 aloof
    From the first patron of the olive bough:
    For Ethiop earth beneath its tropic sun
    Ne'er burn'd with such fierce heat, as I with rage
    At 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.

    MACGREGOR.