A laurel then protected from that heaven: 
    Whence, oft enamour’d with its lovely boughs,
    A roamer I have been through woods, o’er hills,
    But never found I other trunk, nor leaves
    Like these, so honour’d with supernal light,
    Which changed not qualities with changing time.

    Wherefore each hour more firm, from time to time
    Following where I heard my call from heaven,
    And guided ever by a soft clear light,
    I turn’d, devoted still, to those first boughs,
    Or when on earth are scatter’d the sere leaves,
    Or when the sun restored makes green the hills.

    The woods, the rocks, the fields, the floods, and hills,
    All that is made, are conquer’d, changed by time: 
    And therefore ask I pardon of those leaves,
    If after many years, revolving heaven
    Sway’d me to flee from those entangling boughs,
    When I begun to see its better light.

    So dear to me at first was the sweet light,
    That willingly I pass’d o’er difficult hills,
    But to be nearer those beloved boughs;
    Now shortening life, the apt place and full time
    Show me another path to mount to heaven,
    And to make fruit not merely flowers and leaves.

    Other love, other leaves, and other light,
    Other ascent to heaven by other hills
    I seek—­in sooth ’tis time—­and other boughs.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXI.

Quand’ io v’ odo parlar si dolcemente.

TO ONE WHO SPOKE TO HIM OF LAURA.

      Whene’er you speak of her in that soft tone
    Which Love himself his votaries surely taught,
    My ardent passion to such fire is wrought,
    That e’en the dead reviving warmth might own: 
    Where’er to me she, dear or kind, was known
    There the bright lady is to mind now brought,
    In the same bearing which, to waken thought,
    Needed no sound but of my sighs alone. 
    Half-turn’d I see her looking, on the breeze
    Her light hair flung; so true her memories roll
    On my fond heart of which she keeps the keys;
    But the surpassing bliss which floods my soul
    So checks my tongue, to tell how, queen-like, there,
    She sits as on her throne, I never dare.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXII.

Ne cosi bello il sol giammai levarsi.

THE CHARMS OF LAURA WHEN SHE FIRST MET HIS SIGHT.

      Ne’er can the sun such radiance soft display,
    Piercing some cloud that would its light impair;
    Ne’er tinged some showery arch the humid air,
    With variegated lustre half so gay,
    As when, sweet-smiling my fond heart away,
    All-beauteous shone my captivating fair;
    For charms what mortal can