MACGREGOR.

SONNET CCXIX.

In quel bel viso, ch’ i’ sospiro e bramo.

ON LAURA PUTTING HER HAND BEFORE HER EYES WHILE HE WAS GAZING ON HER.

      On the fair face for which I long and sigh
    Mine eyes were fasten’d with desire intense. 
    When, to my fond thoughts, Love, in best reply,
    Her honour’d hand uplifting, shut me thence. 
    My heart there caught—­as fish a fair hook by,
    Or as a young bird on a limed fence—­
    For good deeds follow from example high,
    To truth directed not its busied sense. 
    But of its one desire my vision reft,
    As dreamingly, soon oped itself a way,
    Which closed, its bliss imperfect had been left: 
    My soul between those rival glories lay,
    Fill’d with a heavenly and new delight,
    Whose strange surpassing sweets engross’d it quite.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CCXX.

Vive faville uscian de’ duo bei lumi.

A SMILING WELCOME, WHICH LAURA GAVE HIM UNEXPECTEDLY, ALMOST KILLS HIM WITH JOY.

      Live sparks were glistening from her twin bright eyes,
    So sweet on me whose lightning flashes beam’d,
    And softly from a feeling heart and wise,
    Of lofty eloquence a rich flood stream’d: 
    Even the memory serves to wake my sighs
    When I recall that day so glad esteem’d,
    And in my heart its sinking spirit dies
    As some late grace her colder wont redeem’d. 
    My soul in pain and grief that most has been
    (How great the power of constant habit is!)
    Seems weakly ’neath its double joy to lean: 
    For at the sole taste of unusual bliss,
    Trembling with fear, or thrill’d by idle hope,
    Oft on the point I’ve been life’s door to ope.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CCXXI.

Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita.

THINKING ALWAYS OF LAURA, IT PAINS HIM TO REMEMBER WHERE SHE IS LEFT.

      Still have I sought a life of solitude;
    The streams, the fields, the forests know my mind;
    That I might ’scape the sordid and the blind,
    Who paths forsake trod by the wise and good: 
    Fain would I leave, were mine own will pursued,
    These Tuscan haunts, and these soft skies behind,
    Sorga’s thick-wooded hills again to find;
    And sing and weep in concert with its flood. 
    But Fortune, ever my sore enemy,
    Compels my steps, where I with sorrow see
    Cast my fair treasure in a worthless soil: 
    Yet less a foe she justly deigns to prove,
    For once, to me, to Laura, and to love;
    Favouring my song, my passion, with her smile.

    NOTT.