Venice masks

Thursday 30 June 2016

What are you doing, soul? - Petrarch

“What are you doing, soul? What do you think?
Will we have peace? A truce? Or always war?”—
"I do not know our future, but I see
our torment doesn't please her lovely eyes.”—

“What does that help, if with those eyes in summer
she turns us into ice, to fire in winter?"—
“Not she, but he who has control of them."—
“What's that to us, if she sees and is silent?"—

"Sometimes her tongue is silent while her heart
cries out, and though her face is dry and gay
she's weeping where your gazing cannot reach."—

“My mind is still not satisfied, and sorrow,
which gathers there, and stagnates, must burst out;
it's hard for one who's wretched to have hopes."

Petrarch, or Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) Italy

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