No More Learning

_O tempo, o ciel volubil che fuggendo. _

HE NO LONGER CONTEMPLATES THE MORTAL, BUT THE IMMORTAL BEAUTIES OF
LAURA.


O Time! O heavens! whose flying changes frame
Errors and snares for mortals poor and blind;
O days more swift than arrows or the wind,
Experienced now, I know your treacherous aim.
You I excuse, myself alone I blame,
For Nature for your flight who wings design'd
To me gave eyes which still I have inclined
To mine own ill, whence follow grief and shame.
An hour will come, haply e'en now is pass'd,
Their sight to turn on my diviner part
And so this infinite anguish end at last.
Rejects not your long yoke, O Love, my heart,
But its own ill by study, sufferings vast:
Virtue is not of chance, but painful art.

MACGREGOR.


O Time! O circling heavens! in your flight
Us mortals ye deceive--so poor and blind;
O days! more fleeting than the shaft or wind,
Experience brings your treachery to my sight!
But mine the error--ye yourselves are right;
Your flight fulfils but that your wings design'd:
My eyes were Nature's gift, yet ne'er could find
But one blest light--and hence their present blight.
It now is time (perchance the hour is pass'd)
That they a safer dwelling should select,
And thus repose might soothe my grief acute:
Love's yoke the spirit may not from it cast,
(With oh what pain!
) it may its ill eject;
But virtue is attain'd but by pursuit!

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!