O ye who trace through scattered verse the sound
Of those long sighs wherewith I fed my heart
Amid youth's errors, when in greater part
That man unlike this present man was found;
For the mixed strain which here I do compound
Of empty hopes and pains that vainly start,
Whatever soul hath truly felt love's smart,
With pity and with pardon will abound.
But now I see full well how long I earned
All men's reproof; and oftentimes my soul
Lies crushed by its own grief; and it doth seem
For such misdeed shame is the fruitage whole,
And wild repentance and the knowledge learned
That worldly joy is still a short, short dream.
FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY COPIES
PRINTED AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, IN THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER,
MDCCCCIII. NUMBER 426
[Illustration]
[Transcriber's Note: Below is a list of printer errors that have been
corrected in the Italian sonnets, by reference to the 1964 critical
edition of _Il Canzoniere_ edited by Gianfranco Contini, available at
Liber Liber, www.liberliber.it. The translator of this book probably
used as his source an edition in which spelling and punctuation were
somewhat modernized; these modernizations have not been altered in
this e-book. Spacing of elisions (such as "ch'ascolti") has been
normalized. The original book was printed almost entirely in italics,
which are not marked as such in this e-text. Printer errors in the
English portions of this book have been corrected without note.
Sonnet Line Error Correction
II 10 a'udendo d'udendo
III 14 Che Ché
IV 13 che ché
VI 4 Che Ché
VI 12 si sì
VII 9 doglia doglio
VIII 9 Che Ché
The sonnets in this book correspond to the following numbers in _Il
Canzoniere_:
This book _Il Canzoniere_
1. 162 Lieti fiori
2. 167 Quando Amor
3. 227 Aura che quelle chiome
4. 261 Qual donna attende
5. 161 O passi sparsi
6. 156 I' vidi in terra
7. 292 Gli occhi di ch'io parlai
8. 294 Soleasi nel mio cor
9. 302 Levommi il mio pensier
10. 351 Dolci durezze
11. 346 Gli angeli eletti
12. 361 Dicemi spesso
13. 353 Vago augelletto
14. 7 La gola e 'l sonno
15. 1 Voi ch'ascoltate]