Petrarch - Sonnet CCII lyrics

HE PLEADS THE EXCESS OF HIS PASSION IN PALLIATION OF HIS FAULT Oft have I pray'd to Love, and still I pray, My charming agony, my bitter joy! That he would crave your grace, if consciously From the right path my guilty footsteps stray. That Reason, which o'er happier minds holds sway, Is quell'd of Appetite, I not deny; And hence, through tracks my better thoughts would fly, The victor hurries me perforce away, You, in whose bosom Genius, Virtue reign With mingled blaze lit by auspicious skies— Ne'er shower'd kind star its beams on aught so rare! You, you should say with pity, not disdain; "How could he 'scape, lost wretch! these lightning eyes— So pa**ionate he, and I so direly fair?" Wrangham.