Love's voyager

... From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought;
If ‘mid the waste well forth a lovely rill,
Or deep emobosom’d a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart is still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile or weep, or fondly hope, or fear,
While in my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whoso’er has proved the lover’s state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future state.

-- from “Distance and Solitude,”
Francisco Petrarca (c. 1304-1374),
transl. Lady Barbarina Dacre