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Love had at length a tranquil port displayed To travailed soul, long vexed by toil and teen, In calm maturity, where naked seen Is Vice, and Virtue in fair garb arrayed. Bare to her eyes my heart should now be laid, Disquieted no more their peace serene— O Death! what harvest of long years hath been Ruin by thee in one brief moment made! The hour when unreproved I might invoke Her chaste ear’s favour, and disburden there My breast of fond and ancient thought, drew nigh: And she, perchance, considering as I spoke Each bloomless face and either’s silvered hair, Some blessed word had uttered with a sigh.

The thought manifestly is, that if Laura had lived a short time longer their intimacy would have given no occasion for scandal. This might be true of an unmarried lady or a widow, hardly of a wife. The sonnet also proves that Petrarch and Laura were nearly of an age, refuting Vellutello’s opinion on this point. Salvatore Betti, moreover, has found another Laura, fulfilling, in his estimation, all requisites as well as the Abbé de Sade’s.