Ways apt and new to sing of love I’d find,
    Forcing from her hard heart full many a sigh,
    And re-enkindle in her frozen mind
    Desires a thousand, passionate and high;
    O’er her fair face would see each swift change pass,
    See her fond eyes at length where pity reigns,
    As one who sorrows when too late, alas! 
    For his own error and another’s pains;
    See the fresh roses edging that fair snow
    Move with her breath, that ivory descried,
    Which turns to marble him who sees it near;
    See all, for which in this brief life below
    Myself I weary not but rather pride
    That Heaven for later times has kept me here.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CII.

S’ Amor non e, che dunque e quel ch’ i’ sento?

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF LOVE.

      If no love is, O God, what fele I so? 
    And if love is, what thing and which is he? 
    If love be gode, from whence cometh my woe? 
    If it be wicke, a wonder thinketh me
    When every torment and adversite
    That cometh of him may to me savory thinke: 
    For aye more thurst I the more that I drinke. 
    And if that at my owne lust I brenne,
    From whence cometh my wailing and my pleinte? 
    If harme agre me whereto pleine I thenne? 
    I not nere why unwery that I feinte. 
    O quicke deth, O surele harme so quainte,
    How may I see in me such quantite,
    But if that I consent that so it be?

    CHAUCER.

      If ’tis not love, what is it feel I then? 
    If ’tis, how strange a thing, sweet powers above! 
    If love be kind, why does it fatal prove? 
    If cruel, why so pleasing is the pain? 
    If ’tis my will to love, why weep, why plain? 
    If not my will, tears cannot love remove. 
    O living death!  O rapturous pang!—­why, love! 
    If I consent not, canst thou o’er me reign? 
    If I consent, ’tis wrongfully I mourn: 
    Thus on a stormy sea my bark is borne
    By adverse winds, and with rough tempest tost;
    Thus unenlightened, lost in error’s maze,
    My blind opinion ever dubious strays;
    I’m froze by summer, scorched by winter’s frost.

    ANON. 1777.

SONNET CIII.

Amor m’ ha posto come segno a strale.

LOVE’S ARMOURY.

      Love makes me as the target for his dart,
    As snow in sunshine, or as wax in flame,
    Or gale-driven cloud; and, Laura, on thy name
    I call, but thou no pity wilt impart. 
    Thy radiant eyes first caused my bosom’s smart;
    No time, no place can shield me from their beam;
    From thee (but, ah, thou treat’st it as a dream!)
    Proceed the torments of my suff’ring heart. 
    Each thought’s an arrow,