281. ‘Quante fiate, al mio dolce ricetto’

How often I come to my sweet retreat,

fleeing from others, and, if I could, myself,

bathing the grass and my breast with tears,

troubling the air I touch with sighs!

How often, alone and anxious I’ve gone

through dark and shadowy places,

seeking my noble joy, whom Death has taken,

in thought, so that I often call out to her!

Now in the shape of a nymph or other goddess

rising from the Sorgue’s crystal depths,

she comes to sit on the river-bank:

now I have seen her on the fresh grass,

treading the flowers like a living woman,

showing she pities me by her look.