No More Learning

WOLLASTON.




SONNET XXXVIII.

_L' oro e le perle, e i fior vermigli e i bianchi. _

HE INVEIGHS AGAINST LAURA'S MIRROR, BECAUSE IT MAKES HER FORGET HIM.


Those golden tresses, teeth of pearly white,
Those cheeks' fair roses blooming to decay,
Do in their beauty to my soul convey
The poison'd arrows from my aching sight.
Thus sad and briefly must my days take flight,
For life with woe not long on earth will stay;
But more I blame that mirror's flattering sway,
Which thou hast wearied with thy self-delight.
Its power my bosom's sovereign too hath still'd,
Who pray'd thee in my suit--now he is mute,
Since thou art captured by thyself alone:
Death's seeds it hath within my heart instill'd,
For Lethe's stream its form doth constitute,
And makes thee lose each image but thine own.

WOLLASTON.


The gold and pearls, the lily and the rose
Which weak and dry in winter wont to be,
Are rank and poisonous arrow-shafts to me,
As my sore-stricken bosom aptly shows:
Thus all my days now sadly shortly close,
For seldom with great grief long years agree;
But in that fatal glass most blame I see,
That weary with your oft self-liking grows.
It on my lord placed silence, when my suit
He would have urged, but, seeing your desire
End in yourself alone, he soon was mute.
'Twas fashion'd in hell's wave and o'er its fire,
And tinted in eternal Lethe: thence
The spring and secret of my death commence.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XXXIX.

_Io sentia dentr' al cor gia venir meno. _

HE DESIRES AGAIN TO GAZE ON THE EYES Of LAURA.
I now perceived that from within me fled
Those spirits to which you their being lend;
And since by nature's dictates to defend
Themselves from death all animals are made,
The reins I loosed, with which Desire I stay'd,
And sent him on his way without a friend;
There whither day and night my course he'd bend,
Though still from thence by me reluctant led.
And me ashamed and slow along he drew
To see your eyes their matchless influence shower,
Which much I shun, afraid to give you pain.
Yet for myself this once I'll live; such power
Has o'er this wayward life one look from you:--
Then die, unless Desire prevails again.

ANON. , OX. , 1795.


Because the powers that take their life from you
Already had I felt within decay,
And because Nature, death to shield or slay,
Arms every animal with instinct true,
To my long-curb'd desire the rein I threw,
And turn'd it in the old forgotten way,
Where fondly it invites me night and day,
Though 'gainst its will, another I pursue.
And thus it led me back, ashamed and slow,
To see those eyes with love's own lustre rife
Which I am watchful never to offend:
Thus may I live perchance awhile below;
One glance of yours such power has o'er my life
Which sure, if I oppose desire, shall end.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XL.

_Se mai foco per foco non si spense. _

HIS HEART IS ALL IN FLAMES, BUT HIS TONGUE IS MUTE, IN HER PRESENCE.


If fire was never yet by fire subdued,
If never flood fell dry by frequent rain,
But, like to like, if each by other gain,
And contraries are often mutual food;
Love, who our thoughts controllest in each mood,
Through whom two bodies thus one soul sustain,
How, why in her, with such unusual strain
Make the want less by wishes long renewed?
Perchance, as falleth the broad Nile from high,
Deafening with his great voice all nature round,
And as the sun still dazzles the fix'd eye,
So with itself desire in discord found
Loses in its impetuous object force,
As the too frequent spur oft checks the course.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XLI.