To His Mistress In Absence

Torquato Tasso 1544 (Sorrento) – 1595 (Rome)



FAR from thy dearest self, the scope
Of all my aims,
I waste in secret flames;
And only live because I hope.

O when will Fate restore
The joys, in whose bright fire
My expectation shall expire,
That I may live because I hope no more!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

14 sec read
125

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA CXXC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 234
Words 48
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 4, 4

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata, in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. more…

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