my weak mind at last
    Is chafed and pines, so many ills and vast
    Expose its peace to constant strifes unkind. 
    Nor hope I better days shall turn again;
    But what is left from bad to worse may pass: 
    For ah! already life is on the wane. 
    Not now of adamant, but frail as glass,
    I see my best hopes fall from me or fade,
    And low in dust my fond thoughts broken laid.

    MACGREGOR.

      Love, Fortune, and my ever-faithful mind,
    Which loathes the present in its memoried past,
    So wound my spirit, that on all I cast
    An envied thought who rest in darkness find. 
    My heart Love prostrates, Fortune more unkind
    No comfort grants, until its sorrow vast
    Impotent frets, then melts to tears at last: 
    Thus I to painful warfare am consign’d. 
    My halcyon days I hope not to return,
    But paint my future by a darker tint;
    My spring is gone—­my summer well-nigh fled: 
    Ah! wretched me! too well do I discern
    Each hope is now (unlike the diamond flint)
    A fragile mirror, with its fragments shed.

    WOLLASTON.

CANZONE XIII.

Se ’l pensier che mi strugge.

HE SEEKS IN VAIN TO MITIGATE HIS WOE.

      Oh! that my cheeks were taught
    By the fond, wasting thought
    To wear such hues as could its influence speak;
    Then the dear, scornful fair
    Might all my ardour share;
    And where Love slumbers now he might awake! 
    Less oft the hill and mead
    My wearied feet should tread;
    Less oft, perhaps, these eyes with tears should stream;
    If she, who cold as snow,
    With equal fire would glow—­
    She who dissolves me, and converts to flame.

    Since Love exerts his sway,
    And bears my sense away,
    I chant uncouth and inharmonious songs: 
    Nor leaves, nor blossoms show,
    Nor rind, upon the bough,
    What is the nature that thereto belongs. 
    Love, and those beauteous eyes,
    Beneath whose shade he lies,
    Discover all the heart can comprehend: 
    When vented are my cares
    In loud complaints, and tears;
    These harm myself, and others those offend.

    Sweet lays of sportive vein,
    Which help’d me to sustain
    Love’s first assault, the only arms I bore;
    This flinty breast say who
    Shall once again subdue,
    That I with song may soothe me as before? 
    Some power appears to trace
    Within me Laura’s face,
    Whispers her name; and straight in verse I strive
    To picture her again,
    But the fond effort’s vain: 
    Me of my solace thus doth Fate deprive.