WOLLASTON.

SONNET LXVI.

Quel, che d’ odore e di color vincea.

THE LAUREL, IN WHOM HE PLACED ALL HIS JOY HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM HIM TO ADORN HEAVEN.

      That which in fragrance and in hue defied
    The odoriferous and lucid East,
    Fruits, flowers and herbs and leaves, and whence the West
    Of all rare excellence obtain’d the prize,
    My laurel sweet, which every beauty graced,
    Where every glowing virtue loved to dwell,
    Beheld beneath its fair and friendly shade
    My Lord, and by his side my Goddess sit. 
    Still have I placed in that beloved plant
    My home of choicest thoughts:  in fire, in frost
    Shivering or burning, still I have been bless’d. 
    The world was of her perfect honours full
    When God, his own bright heaven therewith to grace,
    Reclaim’d her for Himself, for she was his.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET LXVII.

Lasciato hai, Morte, senza sole il mondo.

HER TRUE WORTH WAS KNOWN ONLY TO HIM AND TO HEAVEN.

      Death, thou the world, since that dire arrow sped,
    Sunless and cold hast left; Love weak and blind;
    Beauty and grace their brilliance have resign’d,
    And from my heavy heart all joy is fled;
    Honour is sunk, and softness banished. 
    I weep alone the woes which all my kind
    Should weep—­for virtue’s fairest flower has pined
    Beneath thy touch:  what second blooms instead? 
    Let earth, sea, air, with common wail bemoan
    Man’s hapless race; which now, since Laura died,
    A flowerless mead, a gemless ring appears. 
    The world possess’d, nor knew her worth, till flown! 
    I knew it well, who here in grief abide;
    And heaven too knows, which decks its forehead with my tears.

    WRANGHAM.

      Thou, Death, hast left this world’s dark cheerless way
    Without a sun:  Love blind and stripp’d of arms;
    Left mirth despoil’d; beauty bereaved of charms;
    And me self-wearied, to myself a prey;
    Left vanish’d, sunk, whate’er was courteous, gay: 
    I only weep, yet all must feel alarms: 
    If beauty’s bud the hand of rapine harms
    It dies, and not a second views the day! 
    Let air, earth, ocean weep for human kind;
    For human kind, deprived of Laura, seems
    A flowerless mead, a ring whose gem is lost. 
    None knew her worth while to this orb confined,
    Save me her bard, whose sorrow ceaseless streams,
    And heaven, that’s made more beauteous at my cost.

    NOTT.

SONNET LXVIII.

Conobbi, quanto il ciel gli occhi m’ aperse.

HER PRAISES ARE, COMPARED WITH HER DESERTS, BUT AS A DROP TO THE OCEAN.