234. ‘O cameretta che già fosti un porto’

O little room that was once a refuge

from those grave diurnal storms of mine,

you are a fountain now of nocturnal tears

which I carry hidden by day from shame.

O little couch that was rest and comfort

in so many torments, from what sad urns

does Love bathe you, with those ivory hands

so wrongly cruel to me alone!

I do not flee from privacy and rest

as much as from my self and from my thoughts,

which lifted me in flight when I followed them:

and I yearn for the hostile and odious crowd

(who would ever have thought it?) as a refuge:

I have such fear of finding myself alone again.