Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca, commonly anglicized as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar and poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often considered the founder of Humanism. In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed as...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth20 July 1304
CityArezzo, Italy
CountryItaly
An equal doom clipp'd Time's blest wings of peace.
Alack our life, so beautiful to see, With how much ease life losest, in a day, What many years with pain and toil amassed!
Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.
For style beyond the genius never dares.
For death betimes is comfort, not dismay, and who can rightly die needs no delay.
How quick the old woe follows a little bliss!
Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!
My flowery and green age was passing away, and I feeling a chill in the fires had been wasting my heart, for I was drawing near the hillside above the grave.
And I live on, but in grief and self-contempt, Left here without the light I loved so much, In a great tempest and with shrouds unkempt.
Hope is incredible to the slave of grief.
Whyle I was abowte to chaunge myn olde lyff-- What sorowe I suffred, dyseese, angre and stryff, Cracchynge myn here, my chekys all totare, Wrythynge my fyngres for angwysshe and care, Watrynge the erthe with my byttre salte teres That the crye of my syghes ascended to Goddys eres, My knees with myn handys grasped togedyre soore, And yitt I stode the same man I was afore Tyl a depe profounde remembraunce att the laste Hadd all my wrecchednesse afore myn eyn caste
Go, grieving rimes of mine, to that hard stone Whereunder lies my darling, lies my dear, And cry to her to speak from heaven's sphere.
Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.
It may be only glory that we seek here, but I persuade myself that, as long as we remain here, that is right. Another glory awaits us in heaven and he who reaches there will not wish even to think of earthly fame.