CANZONE XXIII.
"Nova angeletta sovra l'ale accorta."
A new-born angel, with her wings extended,
Came floating from the skies to this fair shore,
Where, fate-controlled, I wandered with my sorrows.
She saw me there, alone and unbefriended.
She wove a silken net, and threw it o'er
The turf, whose greenness all the pathway borrows.
Then was I captured; nor could fears arise,
Such sweet seduction glimmered from her eyes.
The following, on the other hand, seems to me one of the Shakespearian sonnets; the successive phrases set sail, one by one, like a yacht squadron; each spreads its graceful wings and glides away. It is hard to handle this white canvas without soiling. Macgregor, in the only version of this sonnet which I have seen, abandons all attempt at rhyme; but to follow the strict order of the original in this respect is a part of the pleasant problem which one cannot bear to leave out. And there seems a kind of deity who presides over this union of languages, and who sometimes silently lays the words in order, after all one's own poor attempts have failed.