HE ENCOURAGES HIS SOUL TO LIFT ITSELF TO GOD, AND TO ABANDON THE VANITIES OF EARTH.
What dost thou?
think’st thou? wherefore bend thine eye
Back on the time that never
shall return?
The raging fire, where once
’twas thine to burn,
Why with fresh fuel, wretched
soul, supply?
Those thrilling tones, those
glances of the sky,
Which one by one thy fond
verse strove to adorn,
Are fled; and—well
thou knowest, poor forlorn!—
To seek them here were bootless
industry.
Then toil not bliss so fleeting
to renew;
To chase a thought so fair,
so faithless, cease:
Thou rather that unwavering
good pursue,
Which guides to heaven; since
nought below can please.
Fatal for us that beauty’s
torturing view,
Living or dead alike which
desolates our peace.
WRANGHAM.
SONNET VI.
Datemi pace, o duri miei pensieri.
HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BESIEGED CITY, AND ACCUSES HIS OWN HEART OF TREASON.
O tyrant thoughts,
vouchsafe me some repose!
Sufficeth not that Love, and
Death, and Fate,
Make war all round me to my
very gate,
But I must in me armed hosts
enclose?
And thou, my heart, to me
alone that shows
Disloyal still, what cruel
guides of late
In thee find shelter, now
the chosen mate
Of my most mischievous and
bitter foes?
Love his most secret embassies
in thee,
In thee her worst results
hard Fate explains,
And Death the memory of that
blow, to me
Which shatters all that yet
of hope remains;
In thee vague thoughts themselves
with error arm,
And thee alone I blame for
all my harm.
MACGREGOR.
SONNET VII.
Occhi miei, oscurato e ’l nostro sole.
HE ENDEAVOURS TO FIND PEACE IN THE THOUGHT THAT SHE IS IN HEAVEN.
Mine eyes! our
glorious sun is veil’d in night,
Or set to us, to rise ’mid
realms of love;
There we may hail it still,
and haply prove
It mourn’d that we delay’d
our heavenward flight.
Mine ears! the music of her
tones delight
Those, who its harmony can
best approve;
My feet! who in her track
so joy’d to move.
Ye cannot penetrate her regions
bright!
But wherefore should your
wrath on me descend?
No spell of mine hath hush’d
for ye the joy
Of seeing, hearing, feeling,
she was near:
Go, war with Death—yet,
rather let us bend
To Him who can create—who
can destroy—
And bids the ready smile succeed
the tear.
WOLLASTON.