194. ‘L’aura gentil, che rasserena I pioggi’

I know the gentle breeze that clears the hills,

waking the flowers in that shadowy wood,

by its soft breath, through which my pain

and my fame must both increase together.

I flee from my sweet native Tuscan air

to find where my weary heart can rest:

I seek my sun that I hope to see today,

to light my dark and troubled thoughts.

It grants such sweetness that Love

brings me back to it with force:

till it so dazes me I’m slow to flee.

I’d ask for wings not weapons to escape:

but heaven consumes me with this light,

so I suffer at a distance, near to I burn.