118. ‘Rimansi a dietro il sestodecimo anno’

My sixteenth year of sighs is left behind,

and I travel on towards my end:

and yet it seems but yesterday

the beginning of such great distress.

Bitter is sweet to me, and pain is gain,

and life is burdensome: and I pray it overcomes

ill Fortune, and I fear lest Death should close,

before then, those lovely eyes that make me speak.

Alas, I am here now, and would be elsewhere:

and wish to wish for more, and wish no more:

and because I can’t do more, do what I can:

and fresh tears from old desire

show that I’m what I have always been,

no different yet despite a thousand changes.