Petrarchean Sonnet 292

The Original Text:

The eyes I spoke of once in words that burn,
the arms and hands and feet and lovely face
that took me from myself for such a space
of time and marked me out from other men;

the waving hair of unmixed gold that shone,
the smile that flashed with the angelic rays
that used to make this earth a paradise,
are now a little dust, all feeling gone;

and yet I live, grief and disdain to me,
left where the light I cherished never shows,
in fragile bark on the tempestuous sea.

Here let my loving song come to a close;
the vein of my accustomed art is dry,
and this, my lyre, turned at last to tears.

My Summary

In this sonnet, Francis is talking about Laura, the woman that he has been madly in love with for years. In sonnets before this one he has talked about how he loves her but his love seems to never been returned. And in some, he even talks about how angry at her he is for breaking his heart. In this sonnet, he tells us of his emotions after Laura dies of the black plague. He is remembering how he has talked about her in negative ways and yet how much he loves her. He has recognized that she is gone and that it is the end of their relationship, but yet her knows that he loved and still loves her and seems to never even think about changing the past if he could.

The song that I believe fits this sonnet is Garth Brooks "The Dance"