Pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra. - Petrarch

Now that the time that calls me to depart
draws near, I think, or will not be too long,
like one whom losses make acute and wise,
I keep on wondering where I left the way
that leads to a safe haven on the right:
and on the one hand I am stung
by shame and sorrow making me turn back;
and on the other cannot break
the habit of a pleasure grown so strong
that now it dares to play for time with death.

This mortal life is like a meadow where the serpent lies among the flowers and grass, and if anything we see there pleases our eyes, the result is to enlime our souls more deeply.

Full of a yearning thought that makes me stray away from all others.