"Levommi il mio pensiero."
Dreams bore my fancy to that region where
She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see.
'Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be
I looked on her, less haughty and more fair.
She touched my hand, she said, "Within this sphere,
If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me:
I filled thy life with war's wild agony;
Mine own day closed ere evening could appear.
My bliss no human brain can understand;
I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil
Of beauty thou dost love shall wear again."
Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand
Ere those delicious tones could quite avail
To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?
It vindicates the emphatic reality and pesonality of Petrarch's love,
after all, that when from these heights of vision he surveys and
resurveys his life's long dream, it becomes to him more and more
definite, as well as more poetic, and is farther and farther from a
merely vague sentimentalism. In his later sonnets, Laura grows more
distinctly individual to us; her traits show themselves as more
characteristic, her temperament more intelligible, her precise
influence upon Petrarch clearer. What delicate accuracy of delineation
is seen, for instance, in this sonnet!