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April 22, 2004
"Sonnet 1," Petrarch
by Ron HoganAll you who hear in scattered rhymes the sound
of heavy sighs with which I fed my heart
during the time of my first youthful straying
when I was not the man I've since become:
for the mixed style in which I speak and weep,
caught between empty hopes and empty sorrow,
from anyone who knows of love firsthand
I hope to find some sympathy--and pardon.
I can see now that I was made the subject
of lots of gossip among lots of people;
inside myself I'm often filled with shame;
shame is the fruit of all my clever ravings;
so are repentance and my knowing clearly
that every worldly pleasure is a dream.
From The Poetry of Petrarch, translated by David Young.
Petrarch was one of the great poets of the 14th century, practically inventing the modern sonnet with his poems to his beloved Laura. Sometimes he wrote letters to dead people.
David Young has written nine volumes of his own poetry, in addition to translating Rilke and several poets of the Tang Dynasty. Here's his take on Petrarch's Sonnet 131 and his own poem, "Plato and the Fall."
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