Transcriber’s Note: Printer errors in the Italian sonnets are noted in theTranscriber’s Note at theend of this file, along with a list of the corresponding sonnetnumbers in Il Canzoniere.
FIFTEEN
SONNETS OF
PETRARCH
SELECTED AND TRANSLATED BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
PUBLISHED BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
& COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK
MDCCCCIII
COPYRIGHT 1900 AND 1903
BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INTRODUCTION
NOTE
This introduction is based essentially upon a paper ‘Sunshine andPetrarch’ which originally included most of the sonnets in thisvolume. It was written at Newport, R.I., where the translator wasthen residing.
INTRODUCTION
Near my summer home there is a little cove or landing by the bay,where nothing larger than a boat can ever anchor. I sit above itnow, upon the steep bank, knee-deep in buttercups, and amid grass solush and green that it seems to ripple and flow instead of waving.Below lies a tiny beach, strewn with a few bits of driftwood and somepurple shells, and so sheltered by projecting walls that its waveletsplash but lightly. A little farther out the sea breaks more roughlyover submerged rocks, and the waves lift themselves, before breaking,in an indescribable way, as if each gave a glimpse through atranslucent window, beyond which all ocean’s depths might be clearlyseen, could one but hit the proper angle of vision. On the right sideof my retreat a high wall limits the view, while close upon the leftthe crumbling parapet of Fort Greene stands out into the foreground,its verdant scarp so relieved against the blue water that each inwardbound schooner seems to sail into a cave of grass. In the middledistance is a white lighthouse, and beyond-vi- lie the round tower ofold Fort Louis, and the soft low walls of Conanicut.
Behind me an oriole chirrups in triumph amid the birch-trees whichwave around the house of the haunted window; before me a kingfisherpauses and waits, and a darting blackbird shows the scarlet on hiswings. Sloops and schooners constantly come and go, careening in thewind, their white sails taking, if remote enough, a vague blue mantlefrom the delicate air. Sailboats glide in the distance,—each a merewhite wing of canvas,—or coming nearer, and glancing suddenly intothe cove, are put as suddenly on the other tack, and almost in aninstant seem far away. There is to-day such a live sparkle on thewater, such a luminous freshness on the grass, that it seems, as isoften the case in early June, as if all history were a dream, and thewhole earth were but the creation of a summer’s day.
If Petrarch still knows and feels the consummate beauty of theseearthly things, it may seem to him some repayment for the sorrows ofa lifetime that