I can no more; falls from my hand the curb,
And my despairing soul is bold again;
Wherefore if higher than her wont she aim,
The act is thine, who firest and spur’st her so,
No way too rough or steep for her to go:
But the rare heavenly gifts are most to blame
Shrined in herself: let her at least feel this,
Lest of my faults her pardon I should miss.
MACGREGOR.
SESTINA VII.
Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l’ onde.
HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.
Nor Ocean holds
such swarms amid his waves,
Not overhead, where circles
the pale moon,
Were stars so numerous ever
seen by night,
Nor dwell so many birds among
the woods,
Nor plants so many clothe
the field or hill,
As holds my tost heart busy
thoughts each eve.
Each day I hope that this
my latest eve
Shall part from my quick clay
the sad salt waves,
And leave me in last sleep
on some cold hill;
So many torments man beneath
the moon
Ne’er bore as I have
borne; this know the woods
Through which I wander lonely
day and night.
For never have I had a tranquil
night,
But ceaseless sighs instead
from morn till eve,
Since love first made me tenant
of the woods:
The sea, ere I can rest, shall
lose his waves,
The sun his light shall borrow
from the moon,
And April flowers be blasted
o’er each hill.
Thus, to myself a prey, from
hill to hill,
Pensive by day I roam, and
weep at night,
No one state mine, but changeful
as the moon;
And when I see approaching
the brown eve,
Sighs from my bosom, from
my eyes fall waves,
The herbs to moisten and to
move the woods.
Hostile the cities, friendly
are the woods
To thoughts like mine, which,
on this lofty hill,
Mingle their murmur with the
moaning waves,
Through the sweet silence
of the spangled night,
So that the livelong day I
wait the eve,
When the sun sets and rises
the fair moon.
Would, like Endymion, ’neath
the enamour’d moon,
That slumbering I were laid
in leafy woods,
And that ere vesper she who
makes my eve,
With Love and Luna on that
favour’d hill,
Alone, would come, and stay
but one sweet night,
While stood the sun nor sought
his western waves.
Upon the hard waves, ’neath
the beaming moon,
Song, that art born of night
amid the woods,
Thou shalt a rich hill see
to-morrow eve!
MACGREGOR.
Count the ocean’s
finny droves;
Count the twinkling host of
stars.
Round the night’s pale
orb that moves;
Count the groves’ wing’d
choristers;
Count each verdant blade that
grows;
Counted then will be my woes.