O little room that was once a refuge Poem by Francesco Petrarch

‘O cameretta che già fosti un porto'

O little room that was once a refuge
from those grave diurnal storms of mine,
you are a fountain now of nocturnal tears
which I carry hidden by day from shame.
O little couch that was rest and comfort
in so many torments, from what sad urns
does Love bathe you, with those ivory hands
so wrongly cruel to me alone!
I do not flee from privacy and rest
as much as from my self and from my thoughts,
which lifted me in flight when I followed them:
and I yearn for the hostile and odious crowd
(who would ever have thought it?) as a refuge:
I have such fear of finding myself alone again.

Translated by: A. S. Kline