294. ‘Soleasi nel mio cor star bella et viva’

She used to be lovely and living in my heart,

like a noble lady in a humble, lowly place:

now by her ultimate passing I am

not only mortal, but dead, and she divine.

My soul despoiled, deprived of all its good,

Love stripped and denuded of her light,

are pitiful enough to shatter stone,

but there’s no one can tell or write the pain:

they weep inside, where all ears are deaf,

but mine, who so much grief encumbers,

that I have nothing left but sighs.

Truly we are ashes and a shadow,

truly the blind will’s full of greed,

truly all our hopes deceive us.