| Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893. | | | | Translations | From the Italian.
Seven Sonnets and a Canzone.
V. To Vittoria Colonna |
| | | LADY, how can it chance—yet this we see | |
| In long experience—that will longer last | |
| A living image carved from quarries vast | |
| Than its own maker, who dies presently? | |
| Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, | 5 |
| And even Nature is by Art surpassed; | |
| This know I, who to Art have given the past, | |
| But see that Time is breaking faith with me. | |
| Perhaps on both of us long life can I | |
| Either in color or in stone bestow, | 10 |
| By now portraying each in look and mien; | |
| So that a thousand years after we die, | |
| How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe, | |
| And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen. | | | | |
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