From life’s long storm of trouble and of tears
    Love show’d a tranquil haven and fair end
    ’Mid better thoughts which riper age attend,
    That vice lays bare and virtue clothes and cheers. 
    She saw my true heart, free from doubts and fears,
    And its high faith which could no more offend;
    Ah, cruel Death! how quick wert thou to rend
    In so few hours the fruit of many years! 
    A longer life the time had surely brought
    When in her chaste ear my full heart had laid
    The ancient burthen of its dearest thought;
    And she, perchance, might then have answer made,
    Forth-sighing some blest words, whilst white and few
    Our locks became, and wan our cheeks in hue.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET L.

Al cader d’ una pianta che si svelse.

UNDER THE ALLEGORY OF A LAUREL HE AGAIN DEPLORES HER DEATH.

      As a fair plant, uprooted by oft blows
    Of trenchant spade, or which the blast upheaves,
    Scatters on earth its green and lofty leaves,
    And its bare roots to the broad sunlight shows;
    Love such another for my object chose,
    Of whom for me the Muse a subject weaves,
    Who in my captured heart her home achieves,
    As on some wall or tree the ivy grows
    That living laurel—­where their chosen nest
    My high thoughts made, where sigh’d mine ardent grief,
    Yet never stirr’d of its fair boughs a leaf—­
    To heaven translated, in my heart, her rest,
    Left deep its roots, whence ever with sad cry
    I call on her, who ne’er vouchsafes reply.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET LI.

I di miei piu leggier che nessun cervo.

HIS PASSION FINDS ITS ONLY CONSOLATION IN CONTEMPLATING HER IN HEAVEN.

      My days more swiftly than the forest hind
    Have fled like shadows, and no pleasure seen
    Save for a moment, and few hours serene,
    Whose bitter-sweet I treasure in true mind. 
    O wretched world, unstable, wayward!  Blind
    Whose hopes in thee alone have centred been;
    In thee my heart was captived by her mien
    Who bore it with her when she earth rejoin’d: 
    Her better spirit, now a deathless flower,
    And in the highest heaven that still shall be,
    Each day inflames me with its beauties more. 
    Alone, though frailer, fonder every hour,
    I muse on her—­Now what, and where is she,
    And what the lovely veil which here she wore?

    MACGREGOR.

      Oh! swifter than the hart my life hath fled,
    A shadow’d dream; one winged glance hath seen
    Its only good; its hours (how few serene!)
    The sweet and bitter tide of thought have fed: 
    Ephemeral world! in pride