loss to weep,
    If that pure spirit, pitying my woe,
    Had not appear’d to bless my troubled sleep,
    Ere memory broke upon the world below? 
    What pure, what gentle greetings then were mine! 
    In what attention wrapt she paused to hear
    My life’s sad course, of which she bade me speak! 
    But as the dawn from forth the East did shine
    Back to that heaven to which her way was clear,
    She fled,—­while falling tears bedew’d each cheek.

    WROTTESLEY.

SONNET LXXIII.

Fu forse un tempo dolce cosa amore.

HE COMPLAINS OF HIS SUFFERINGS, WHICH ADMIT OF NO RELIEF.

      Love, haply, was erewhile a sweet relief;
    I scarce know when; but now it bitter grows
    Beyond all else.  Who learns from life well knows,
    As I have learnt to know from heavy grief;
    She, of our age, who was its honour chief,
    Who now in heaven with brighter lustre glows,
    Has robb’d my being of the sole repose
    It knew in life, though that was rare and brief. 
    Pitiless Death my every good has ta’en! 
    Not the great bliss of her fair spirit freed
    Can aught console the adverse life I lead. 
    I wept and sang; who now can wake no strain,
    But day and night the pent griefs of my soul
    From eyes and tongue in tears and verses roll.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET LXXIV.

Spinse amor e dolor ove ir non debbe.

REFLECTING THAT LAURA IS IN HEAVEN, HE REPENTS HIS EXCESSIVE GRIEF, AND IS CONSOLED.

      Sorrow and Love encouraged my poor tongue,
    Discreet in sadness, where it should not go,
    To speak of her for whom I burn’d and sung,
    What, even were it true, ’twere wrong to show. 
    That blessed saint my miserable state
    Might surely soothe, and ease my spirit’s strife,
    Since she in heaven is now domesticate
    With Him who ever ruled her heart in life. 
    Wherefore I am contented and consoled,
    Nor would again in life her form behold;
    Nay, I prefer to die, and live alone. 
    Fairer than ever to my mental eye,
    I see her soaring with the angels high,
    Before our Lord, her maker and my own.

    MACGREGOR.

      My love and grief compell’d me to proclaim
    My heart’s lament, and urged me to convey
    That, were it true, of her I should not say
    Who woke alike my song and bosom’s flame. 
    For I should comfort find, ’mid this world’s shame,
    To mark her soul’s beatified array,
    To think that He who here had own’d its sway,
    Doth now within his home its presence claim. 
    And true I comfort find—­myself resign’d,
    I would not woo her back to earthly gloom;
    Oh! rather let me die, or live still lone! 
    My mental eye, that holds her there enshrined,
    Now paints her wing’d, bright with celestial bloom,
    Prostrate beneath our mutual Heaven’s throne.