Or, it may be, with demons, who impair
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
In melancholy bosoms, such as were
Of moody texture from their earliest day,
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
Deeming themselves predestin'd to a doom
Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.[1]

[1] Childe Harold, Canto iv.

The noble bard, not content with perpetuating Arquà in these
soul-breathing stanzas, has appended to them the following note:--

Petrarch retired to Arquà immediately on his return from the
unsuccessful attempt to visit Urban V. at Rome, in the year
1370, and, with the exception of his celebrated visit to
Venice in company with Francesco Novello da Carrara, he
appears to have passed the four last years of his life between
that charming solitude and Padua. For four months previous to
his death he was in a state of continual languor, and in the
morning of July the 19th, in the year 1374, was found dead in
his library chair with his head resting upon a book. The chair
is still shown amongst the precious relics of Arquà, which,
from the uninterrupted veneration that has been attached to
every thing relative to this great man from the moment of his
death to the present hour, have, it may be hoped, a better
chance of authenticity than the Shaksperian memorials of
Stratford-upon-Avon.