Faith in God Amist Disasters (Sonnet XVII) - Vincenzo da Filicaja

Deaf to those flattering zephyrs from the strand, 

My fragile skiff with cautious foot I steer'd, 

And, softest gales distrusting as they veer'd, 

With this oar touch'd the wave, with that the sand.

But ah, in life's dark main, on either hand, 

Now tempests smite me, pitiless and sore; 

The beach flees far, and skill is skill no more, 

Beneath these skies with densest gloom o'erspann'd !

Yet as to Austral seas the pilot sails, 

Losing all northern lights in that far zone. 

Yet there a cloudless, brilliant pole-star hails,

So I, when meteor-gleams of earth are gone. 

Fix on God's Holy Light which never fails; 

And guide my course by faith's pure aim alone.

---

Vincenzo da Filicaja (1642 - 1707) Italy

Translated by John Sheppard

Source: The Foreign Sacred Lyre: Metrical Versions of Religious Poetry from the German, French, and Italian, by John Sheppard, Jackson & Walford, 1857