O Invidia, nemica di virtute.
ENVY MAY DISTURB, BUT CANNOT DESTROY HIS HOPE.
O deadly Envy, virtue's constant foe,
With good and lovely eager to contest!
Stealthily, by what way, in that fair breast
Hast entrance found? by what arts changed it so?
Thence by the roots my weal hast thou uptorn,
Too blest in love hast shown me to that fair
Who welcomed once my chaste and humble prayer,
But seems to treat me now with hate and scorn.
But though you may by acts severe and ill
Sigh at my good and smile at my distress,
You cannot change for me a single thought.
Not though a thousand times each day she kill
Can I or hope in her or love her less.
For though she scare, Love confidence has taught.
Macgregor.
SONNET CXL.
Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno.
THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.
Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
And in the world how vast the web it weaves.
A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.
By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,
With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:
Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!
Macgregor.