No More Learning

SONNET LXIV.

_Questo nostro caduco e fragil bene. _

NATURE DISPLAYED IN HER EVERY CHARM, BUT SOON WITHDREW HER FROM SIGHT.


This gift of beauty which a good men name,
Frail, fleeting, fancied, false, a wind, a shade,
Ne'er yet with all its spells one fair array'd,
Save in this age when for my cost it came.
Not such is Nature's duty, nor her aim,
One to enrich if others poor are made,
But now on one is all her wealth display'd,
--Ladies, your pardon let my boldness claim.
Like loveliness ne'er lived, or old or new,
Nor ever shall, I ween, but hid so strange,
Scarce did our erring world its marvel view,
So soon it fled; thus too my soul must change
The little light vouchsafed me from the skies
Only for pleasure of her sainted eyes.

MACGREGOR.




SONNET LXV.

_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.