344. ‘Fu forse un tempo dolce cosa amore,’

Love was once a sweet thing perhaps,

I don’t know when: now it’s so bitter,

nothing more so: he knows it well who knows

how heavy it has made me with my grief.

She who was the glory of our age, and now

of Heaven, that she all adorns and brightens,

made rest brief and rare for me, in her life:

and now has taken all repose from me.

Cruel Death has stolen all my good:

nor can the great bliss of her freed

lovely spirit comfort me in my dark state.

I wept and sang: not knowing how to change

my verse, but day and night I welcomed grief

to my soul, pouring it from my tongue and eyes.