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
For though I am a body of this earth, my firm desire is born from the stars.
Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?
In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair - my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did.
A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.
I desire that death find me ready and writing, or if it please Christ, praying and intears.
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.