Petrarch - Sonnet CLXXVI lyrics

HE DESCRIBES HIS STATE, SPECIFYING THE DATE OF HIS ATTACHMENT Pa**ion impels me, Love escorts and leads, Pleasure attracts me, habits old enchain, Hope with its flatteries comforts me again, And, at my hara**'d heart, with fond touch pleads. Poor wretch! it trusts her still, and little heeds The blind and faithless leader of our train; Reason is dead, the senses only reign: One fond desire another still succeeds. Virtue and honour, beauty, courtesy, With winning words and many a graceful way, My heart entangled in that laurel sweet. In thirteen hundred seven and twenty, I —'Twas April, the first hour, on its sixth day— Enter'd Love's labyrinth, whence is no retreat. Macgregor. By will impell'd, Love o'er my path presides; By Pleasure led, o'ercome by Habit's reign, Sweet Hope deludes, and comforts me again; At her bright touch, my heart's despair subsides. It takes her proffer'd hand, and there confides. To doubt its blind disloyal guide were vain; Each sense usurps poor Reason's broken rein; On each desire, another wilder rides! Grace, virtue, honour, beauty, words so dear, Have twined me with that laurell'd bough, whose power My heart hath tangled in its lab'rinth sweet: The thirteen hundred twenty-seventh year, The sixth of April's suns—in that first hour, My entrance mark'd, whence I see no retreat. Wollaston.