No More Learning

Still with fond search each well-known spot I pace
Where once I saw her: Love, who grieves me so,
My only guide, directs me where to go.
I find her not: her every sainted trace
Seeks, in bright realms above, her parent star
From grisly Styx and black Avernus far.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XXXIX.

_Io pensava assai destro esser sull' ale. _

UNWORTHY TO HAVE LOOKED UPON HER, HE IS STILL MORE SO TO ATTEMPT HER
PRAISES.


I thought me apt and firm of wing to rise
(Not of myself, but him who trains us all)
In song, to numbers fitting the fair thrall
Which Love once fasten'd and which Death unties.
Slow now and frail, the task too sorely tries,
As a great weight upon a sucker small:
"Who leaps," I said, "too high may midway fall:
Man ill accomplishes what Heaven denies. "
So far the wing of genius ne'er could fly--
Poor style like mine and faltering tongue much less--
As Nature rose, in that rare fabric, high.
Love follow'd Nature with such full success
In gracing her, no claim could I advance
Even to look, and yet was bless'd by chance.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XL.

_Quella per cui con Sorga ho cangiat' Arno. _

HE ATTEMPTS TO PAINT HER BEAUTIES, BUT NOT HER VIRTUES.


She, for whose sake fair Arno I resign,
And for free poverty court-affluence spurn,
Has known to sour the precious sweets to turn
On which I lived, for which I burn and pine.
Though since, the vain attempt has oft been mine
That future ages from my song should learn
Her heavenly beauties, and like me should burn,
My poor verse fails her sweet face to define.
The gifts, though all her own, which others share,
Which were but stars her bright sky scatter'd o'er,
Haply of these to sing e'en I might dare;
But when to the diviner part I soar,
To the dull world a brief and brilliant light,
Courage and wit and art are baffled quite.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XLI.

_L' alto e novo miracol ch' a di nostri. _

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM TO DESCRIBE HER EXCELLENCES.


The wonder, high and new, that, in our days,
Dawn'd on the world, yet would not there remain,
Which heaven but show'd to us to snatch again
Better to blazon its own starry ways;
That to far times I her should paint and praise
Love wills, who prompted first my passionate strain;
But now wit, leisure, pen, page, ink in vain
To the fond task a thousand times he sways.
My slow rhymes struggle not to life the while;
I feel it, and whoe'er to-day below,
Or speak or write of love will prove it so.
Who justly deems the truth beyond all style,
Here silent let him muse, and sighing say,
Blessed the eyes who saw her living day!

MACGREGOR.




SONNET XLII.

_Zefiro torna, e 'l bel tempo rimena. _

RETURNING SPRING BRINGS TO HIM ONLY INCREASE OF GRIEF.


Zephyr returns; and in his jocund train
Brings verdure, flowers, and days serenely clear;
Brings Progne's twitter, Philomel's lorn strain,
With every bloom that paints the vernal year;
Cloudless the skies, and smiling every plain;
With joyance flush'd, Jove views his daughter dear;
Love's genial power pervades earth, air, and main;
All beings join'd in fond accord appear.
But nought to me returns save sorrowing sighs,
Forced from my inmost heart by her who bore
Those keys which govern'd it unto the skies:
The blossom'd meads, the choristers of air,
Sweet courteous damsels can delight no more;
Each face looks savage, and each prospect drear.

NOTT.