291. ‘Quand’io veggio dal ciel scender l’Aurora’

When I see the Dawn go down the sky

with rosy forehead and her golden hair,

Love assails me, so I grow pale,

and sighing say: ‘There is Laura now.

O happy Tithonus, you know the hour

when you’ll regain your dear treasure:

but when will I who lack my sweet?

To see her once again I have to die.

Your partings cannot be so very harsh,

since every night she returns to you,

and does not scorn your whitened hair:

while she who carried off my thoughts

makes my nights sad, and darkens my days,

and leaves me nothing of her but her name.

Note: For Aurora, the Dawn, and Tithonus see poem 219.