A pure white hind appeared to me Poem by Francesco Petrarch

‘Una candida cerva sopra l'erba'

A pure white hind appeared to me
with two gold horns, on green grass,
between two streams, in a laurel's shade,
at sunrise, in the unripe season.
Her aspect was so sweet and proud
I left all my labour to follow her:
as a miser, in search of treasure,
makes his toil lose its bitterness in delight.
‘Touch me not,' in diamonds and topaz,
was written round about her lovely neck:
‘it pleased my Lord to set me free.'
The sun had already mounted to mid-day,
my eyes were tired with gazing, but not sated,
when I fell into water, and she vanished.

Translated by: A. S. Kline