_ From him, not her those orbs their
movement
learn.
Petrarch
NOTT.
SONNET CXVII.
_Che fai, alma? che pensi? avrem mai pace? _
DIALOGUE OF THE POET WITH HIS HEART.
_P. _ What actions fire thee, and what musings fill?
Soul! is it peace, or truce, or war eterne?
_H. _ Our lot I know not, but, as I discern,
Her bright eyes favour not our cherish'd ill.
_P. _ What profit, with those eyes if she at will
Makes us in summer freeze, in winter burn?
_H.
_ From him, not her those orbs their movement learn.
_P. _ What's he to us, she sees it and is still.
_H. _ Sometimes, though mute the tongue, the heart laments
Fondly, and, though the face be calm and bright,
Bleeds inly, where no eye beholds its grief.
_P. _ Nathless the mind not thus itself contents,
Breaking the stagnant woes which there unite,
For misery in fine hopes finds no relief.
MACGREGOR.
_P. _ What act, what dream, absorbs thee, O my soul?
Say, must we peace, a truce, or warfare hail?
_H. _ Our fate I know not; but her eyes unveil
The grief our woe doth in her heart enrol.
_P. _ But that is vain, since by her eyes' control
With nature I no sympathy inhale.
_H.
