356. ‘L’aura mia sacra al mio stanco riposo’

My sacred breeze so often breathes

on my weary rest, that I take courage

to tell her of the ills I felt and feel, as,

had she lived, I would not have dared to do.

I begin with that loving glance,

which was the start of this long torment,

then follow with how love gnaws me,

wretched or content, day by day, hour by hour.

She is silent, and gazes at me intently,

the picture of pity: sighing at times,

her face adorned by virtuous tears:

so that my mind overcome with grief,

angered with itself, because of her weeping,

returns to itself, shaken from sleep.