The longing of a heart pent up forlorn

Here's a nice cheerful poem for National Poetry Day.


E la Sua Volontade è nostra pace. - Dante
Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome. - Petrarca

Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,
To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,
A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs
While youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.


I've left this almost to the last of the 'Monna Innominata', not because it's the final sonnet in the sequence (though it is) but because it cuts a little close to the bone for me. But it's a good poem, if a little excessively... something; and the quotation from Dante means "And His will is our peace".