3 Sonnets of Petrarch: No. 2, Sonnet No. 164

Now that sky and earth and wind are hushed

And beasts and birds in sleep are silenced too

Night steers its starry chariot through its course

And even the waveless sea retires to bed

I see, I think, I burn, I weep

And she, my undoer, is ever before my eyes as sweet punishment

I wage a war against myself in anger and pain

And only in thoughts of her do I find peace

And thus it is that from one clear living fountain

Come both the bitter and the sweet whereon I am sustained

A single hand both stabs me and also heals the wound

And that is why my suffering will never cease

I die yet am reborn a thousand times a day

While release from pain remains far, far away