University of Virginia Library

PETRARCH'S TRIUMPH OF ETERNITY

Amazed to see nought under heaven's cope
Steady and fast, thus to myself I spake:
Advise thee well-on whom doth hang thy hope?
On God, said I, that promise never brake
With those that trust in him. But now I know
How erst the fickle world abused me,
Eke what I am and was. And now to go
Or rather fly the nimble time I see,
Blame would I, wist I whom; for all the crime
Is mine that should (not slacking till the last)
Have erst unclosed mine eyes before this time.
For truth to say, old wax I all too fast,
But over late God's grace came never yet.
In me also I trust there shall be wrought
Works wonderful and strange by means of it.
These said and answer made, thus more I thought:
If none of all these things do stand in stay
That heaven turns and guides, what end at last
Shall follow of their ever turning sway?
While deeper yet my searching mind I cast,
A world all new even then it seemed me
In never changing and ever living age,
The sun, the sky with all her stars to see
Dissolved quite with earth and seas that rage,
One made more fair and pleasant in his place.
When him that never stayed but erst to change
Each thing was wont wandering in divers race
Stand on one foot I saw; how seemed it strange
All his three parts brought into only one,
And that one fast, so that as wont it was
No more so swift it hasted to be gone
But had one show as earth despoiled of grass.
There were not shall be, hath been, after erst
To irksome, weak and divers state that brought
Our life. As sun doth pierce the glass, so pierced
My thought, yea more, for nothing stoppeth thought.
What grace find I to see if I attain
Even face to face the greatest good of all
(No ill which only time gives and again
As first it came with time eke part it shall).
The Bull or Fish lodge shall no more the sun,
Whose change doth make a toil now die, now spring,
Now waste, now grow. Oh happy sprights that won
Or shall hereafter stand in the chief ring,
Whose names aye memory writes in her book!
On happy he to find, whose hap shall be,
The deep channel of this swift running brook,
Whose name is life, that many wish to see.
Wretched and blind the common sort that stay
Their hope on things which time reaves in a trice,
All deaf, naked and subject to decay,
Quite void of reason and of good advice
And wretched mortal men throughout diseased.
Whose beck doth guide the world, by whom at jar
Are set the elements and eke appeased,
Whose skill doth stretch beyond my reach so far
That even the angels are content and joy
Of thousand parts but one to see, and bend
Their wits to this, and this wish to enjoy.
On happy wandering mind, aye hungering to the end,
What mean so many thoughts? One hour doth reave
That many years gathered with much ado.
Tomorrow, yesterday, morning and eve,
That press our soul and it encumber so,
Before him pass shade-like at once away,
For was or shall be no place shall be found
But for the time of is, now and today,
Only eternity knit fast and sound.
Huge hills shall be made plain that stopped clean
Our sight, nor shall there anything remain
Whereon may hope or our remembrance lean,
Whose change make other do that is but vain,
And life to seem a sport. Even with this thought,
What shall I be, what was I heretofore,
All shall be one nor piece-meal parted ought.
Summer shall be nor winter any more,
But time shall die, and place be changed withal,
And years shall bear no rule on mortal fame,
But his renown forever flourish shall
That once achieved to be of flowering name.
Oh happy souls that now the path doth tread
Or henceforth shall, when so it haps to be,
Which to the end whereof I speak doth lead.
Of fair and wandering sprights yet happiest she
Whom death hath slain far short of nature's bound.
The heavenly talk, good words and thoughts so chaste
Open shall lie unfolded in that stound,
Which kind within a youthful heart hath placed.