Oh! never sure were seen such brilliant eyes,
    In this our age or in the older years,
    Which mould and melt me, as the sun melts snow,
    Into a stream of tears adown the vale,
    Watering the hard roots of that laurel green,
    Whose boughs are diamonds and gold whose hair.

    I fear that Time my mien may change and hair,
    Ere, with true pity touch’d, shall greet my eyes
    My idol imaged in that laurel green: 
    For, unless memory err, through seven long years
    Till now, full many a shore has heard my wail,
    By night, at noon, in summer and in snow.

    Thus fire within, without the cold, cold snow,
    Alone, with these my thoughts and her bright hair,
    Alway and everywhere I bear my ail,
    Haply to find some mercy in the eyes
    Of unborn nations and far future years,
    If so long flourishes our laurel green.

    The gold and topaz of the sun on snow
    Are shamed by the bright hair above those eyes,
    Searing the short green of my life’s vain years.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XXIV.

Quest’ anima gentil che si diparte.

ON LAURA DANGEROUSLY ILL.

      That graceful soul, in mercy call’d away
    Before her time to bid the world farewell,
    If welcomed as she ought in the realms of day,
    In heaven’s most blessed regions sure shall dwell. 
    There between Mars and Venus if she stay,
    Her sight the brightness of the sun will quell,
    Because, her infinite beauty to survey,
    The spirits of the blest will round her swell. 
    If she decide upon the fourth fair nest
    Each of the three to dwindle will begin,
    And she alone the fame of beauty win,
    Nor e’en in the fifth circle may she rest;
    Thence higher if she soar, I surely trust
    Jove with all other stars in darkness will be thrust.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XXV.

Quanto piu m’ avvicino al giorno estremo.

HE CONSOLES HIMSELF THAT HIS LIFE IS ADVANCING TO ITS CLOSE.

      Near and more near as life’s last period draws,
    Which oft is hurried on by human woe,
    I see the passing hours more swiftly flow,
    And all my hopes in disappointment close. 
    And to my heart I say, amidst its throes,
    “Not long shall we discourse of love below;
    For this my earthly load, like new-fall’n snow
    Fast melting, soon shall leave us to repose. 
    With it will sink in dust each towering hope,
    Cherish’d so long within my faithful breast;
    No more shall we resent, fear, smile, complain: 
    Then shall we clearly trace why some are blest,
    Through deepest misery raised to Fortune’s top,
    And why so many sighs so oft are heaved in vain.”