with her compare! 
    But truth, impartial truth! much more might say. 
    I saw young Cupid, saw his laughing eyes
    With such bewitching, am’rous sweetness roll,
    That every human glance I since despise. 
    Believe, dear friend!  I saw the wanton boy;
    Bent was his bow to wound my tender soul;
    Yet, ah! once more I’d view the dang’rous joy.

    ANON. 1777.

      Sun never rose so beautiful and bright
    When skies above most clear and cloudless show’d,
    Nor, after rain, the bow of heaven e’er glow’d
    With tints so varied, delicate, and light,
    As in rare beauty flash’d upon my sight,
    The day I first took up this am’rous load,
    That face whose fellow ne’er on earth abode—­
    Even my praise to paint it seems a slight! 
    Then saw I Love, who did her fine eyes bend
    So sweetly, every other face obscure
    Has from that hour till now appear’d to me. 
    The boy-god and his bow, I saw them, friend,
    From whom life since has never been secure,
    Whom still I madly yearn again to see.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXIII.

Pommi ove ‘l sol occide i fiori e l’ erba.

HIS INVINCIBLE CONSTANCY.

      Place me where herb and flower the sun has dried,
    Or where numb winter’s grasp holds sterner sway: 
    Place me where Phoebus sheds a temperate ray,
    Where first he glows, where rests at eventide. 
    Place me in lowly state, in power and pride,
    Where lour the skies, or where bland zephyrs play
    Place me where blind night rules, or lengthened day,
    In age mature, or in youth’s boiling tide: 
    Place me in heaven, or in the abyss profound,
    On lofty height, or in low vale obscure,
    A spirit freed, or to the body bound;
    Bank’d with the great, or all unknown to fame,
    I still the same will be! the same endure! 
    And my trilustral sighs still breathe the same!

    DACRE.

      Place me where Phoebus burns each herb, each flower;
    Or where cold snows, and frost o’ercome his rays: 
    Place me where rolls his car with temp’rate blaze;
    In climes that feel not, or that feel his power. 
    Place me where fortune may look bright, or lour;
    Mid murky airs, or where soft zephyr plays: 
    Place me in night, in long or short-lived days,
    Where age makes sad, or youth gilds ev’ry hour: 
    Place me on mountains high, in vallies drear,
    In heaven, on earth, in depths unknown to-day;
    Whether life fosters still, or flies this clay: 
    Place me where fame is distant, where she’s near: 
    Still will I love; nor shall those sighs yet cease,
    Which thrice five years have robb’d this breast of peace.

    ANON. 1777.