If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Petrarch
Thus ever grows my life, by night and day,
Despondent, and dismay'd, and ill at ease,
Harass'd and helmless on tempestuous seas,
With no sure escort on a doubtful way.
Her path a sick imagination guides,
Its true light underneath--ah, no! on high,
Whence on my heart she beams more bright than eye,
Not on mine eyes; from them a dark veil hides
Those lovely orbs, and makes me, ere life's span
Is measured half, an old and broken man.
MACGREGOR.
SONNET X.
_Nell' eta sua piu bella e piu fiorita. _
HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS
ALREADY ARE.
E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway
Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,
Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, pass'd from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,
From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind
That first of peace, of sin that latest day?
As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!
MACGREGOR.
SONNET XI.
_Se lamentar augelli, o Verdi fronde. _
SHE IS EVER PRESENT TO HIM.
If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Her, form'd in heaven! I see, and hear, and know!
Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:
"Alas," she pitying says, "ere yet the hour,
Why hurry life away with swifter flight?
Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?
No longer mourn my fate! through death my days
Become eternal! to eternal light
These eyes, which seem'd in darkness closed, I raise! "
DACRE.
Where the green leaves exclude the summer beam,
And softly bend as balmy breezes blow,
And where with liquid lapse the lucid stream
Across the fretted rock is heard to flow,
Pensive I lay: when she whom earth conceals
As if still living to my eye appears;
And pitying Heaven her angel form reveals
To say, "Unhappy Petrarch, dry your tears.
Ah! why, sad lover, thus before your time
In grief and sadness should your life decay,
And, like a blighted flower, your manly prime
In vain and hopeless sorrow fade away?
Ah! yield not thus to culpable despair;
But raise thine eyes to heaven and think I wait thee there! "
CHARLOTTE SMITH.
Moved by the summer wind when all is still,
The light leaves quiver on the yielding spray;
Sighs from its flowery bank the lucid rill,
While the birds answer in their sweetest lay.
