NOTT.
Ye damsels, pour
your tears! weep with you. Love!
Weep, all ye lovers, through
the peopled sphere!
Since he is dead who, while
he linger’d here,
With all his might to do you
honour strove.
For me, this tyrant grief
my prayers shall move
Not to contest the comfort
of a tear,
Nor check those sighs, that
to my heart are dear,
Since ease from them alone
it hopes to prove.
Ye verses, weep!—ye
rhymes, your woes renew!
For Cino, master of the love-fraught
lay,
E’en now is from our
fond embraces torn!
Pistoia, weep, and all your
thankless crew!
Your sweetest inmate now is
reft away—
But, heaven, rejoice, and
hail your son new-born!
CHARLEMONT.
SONNET LXXII.
Piu volte Amor m’ avea gia detto: scrivi.
HE WRITES WHAT LOVE BIDS HIM.
White—to
my heart Love oftentimes had said—
Write what thou seest in letters
large of gold,
That livid are my votaries
to behold,
And in a moment made alive
and dead.
Once in thy heart my sovran
influence spread
A public precedent to lovers
told;
Though other duties drew thee
from my fold,
I soon reclaim’d thee
as thy footsteps fled.
And if the bright eyes which
I show’d thee first,
If the fair face where most
I loved to stay,
Thy young heart’s icy
hardness when I burst,
Restore to me the bow which
all obey,
Then may thy cheek, which
now so smooth appears,
Be channell’d with my
daily drink of tears.
MACGREGOR.
SONNET LXXIII.
Quando giugne per gli occhi al cor profondo.
HE DESCRIBES THE STATE OF TWO LOVERS, AND RETURNS IN THOUGHT TO HIS OWN SUFFERINGS.
When reaches through
the eyes the conscious heart
Its imaged fate, all other
thoughts depart;
The powers which from the
soul their functions take
A dead weight on the frame
its limbs then make.
From the first miracle a second
springs,
At times the banish’d
faculty that brings,
So fleeing from itself, to
some new seat,
Which feeds revenge and makes
e’en exile sweet.
Thus in both faces the pale
tints were rife,
Because the strength which
gave the glow of life
On neither side was where
it wont to dwell—
I on that day these things
remember’d well,
Of that fond couple when each
varying mien
Told me in like estate what
long myself had been.
MACGREGOR.
SONNET LXXIV.
Cosi potess’ io ben chiuder in versi.
HE COMPLAINS THAT TO HIM ALONE IS FAITH HURTFUL.