Sonnet VIII: I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown - Louise Labé

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love's inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again.

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Louise Charlin Perrin Labé [La Belle Cordière] ( c. 1524 – 1566) France

Translated by A. S. Kline

Source: Poetry in Translation