MACGREGOR.

CANZONE VIII.

Perche la vita e breve.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA’S EYES:  THE DIFFICULTY OF HIS THEME.

      Since human life is frail,
    And genius trembles at the lofty theme,
    I little confidence in either place;
    But let my tender wail
    There, where it ought, deserved attention claim,
    That wail which e’en in silence we may trace. 
    O beauteous eyes, where Love doth nestling stay! 
    To you I turn my insufficient lay,
    Unapt to flow; but passion’s goad I feel: 
    And he of you who sings
    Such courteous habit by the strain is taught,
    That, borne on amorous wings,
    He soars above the reach of vulgar thought: 
    Exalted thus, I venture to reveal
    What long my cautious heart has labour’d to conceal.

    Yes, well do I perceive
    To you how wrongful is my scanty praise;
    Yet the strong impulse cannot be withstood,
    That urges, since I view’d
    What fancy to the sight before ne’er gave,
    What ne’er before graced mine, or higher lays. 
    Bright authors of my sadly-pleasing state,
    That you alone conceive me well I know,
    When to your fierce beams I become as snow! 
    Your elegant disdain
    Haply then kindles at my worthless strain. 
    Did not this dread create
    Some mitigation of my bosom’s heat,
    Death would be bliss:  for greater joy ’twould give
    With them to suffer death, without them than to live.

    If not consumed quite,
    I the weak object of a flame so strong: 
    ’Tis not that safety springs from native might,
    But that some fear restrains,
    Which chills the current circling through my veins;
    Strengthening this heart, that it may suffer long. 
    O hills, O vales, O forests, floods, and fields,
    Ye who have witness’d how my sad life flows,
    Oft have ye heard me call on death for aid. 
    Ah, state surcharged with woes! 
    To stay destroys, and flight no succour yields. 
    But had not higher dread
    Withheld, some sudden effort I had made
    To end my sorrows and protracted pains,
    Of which the beauteous cause insensible remains.

    Why lead me, grief, astray
    From my first theme to chant a different lay? 
    Let me proceed where pleasure may invite. 
    ’Tis not of you I ’plain,
    O eyes, beyond compare serenely bright;
    Nor yet of him who binds me in his chain. 
    Ye clearly can behold the hues that Love
    Scatters ofttime on my dejected face;
    And fancy may his inward workings trace
    There where, whole nights and days,
    He rules with power derived from your bright rays: 
    What rapture would ye prove,
    If you, dear lights, upon yourselves could gaze! 
    But, frequent as you bend your beams on me,
    What influence you possess you in another see.