For a long time I loved the world blindly,

For a long time I loved the world blindly,
allured by fame, that viper at the breast,
and what emerged? on my tongue a cry of
ceaseless wretchedness. So I turned to God--

and help came. So now I'll write, but with nails
from the cross. His dear blood will be my ink;
His exhausted body, my streaked paper:
may I channel the grief all have known, all

He suffered, into these poems. It's no good
invoking Parnassus and Delos: look
to other springs, rest on another hill

human feet cannot climb by themselves. May
the Sun which lights the earth and sky, pour
his waters down to appease this parched thirst.
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition
Notes:
V I:161. From Bullock S1:1:85 (l. 1: "Poi che 'l mio casto amor gran tempo tenne;" also l. 7: "vergata carta"); R III:398-9. Translations: Roscoe 142; Lefevre-Deumier 94-5; McAuliffe 95; Gibaldi 39. Key

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