Happy in visions, and content to pine,
Shadows to clasp, to chase the summer gale,
On shoreless and unfathom'd sea to sail,
To build on sand, and in the air design,
The sun to gaze on till these eyes of mine
Abash'd before his noonday splendour fail,
To chase adown some soft and sloping vale,
The wingèd stag with maim'd and heavy kine;
Weary and blind, save my own harm to all,
Which day and night I seek with throbbing heart,
On Love, on Laura, and on Death I call.
Thus twenty years of long and cruel smart,
In tears and sighs I've pass'd, because I took
Under ill stars, alas! both bait and hook.
Macgregor.
SONNET CLXXVIII.
Grazie ch' a pochi 'l ciel largo destina.
THE ENCHANTMENTS THAT ENTHRALL HIM
Graces, that liberal Heaven on few bestows;
Rare excellence, scarce known to human kind;
With youth's bright locks age's ripe judgment join'd;
Celestial charms, which a meek mortal shows;
An elegance unmatch'd; and lips, whence flows
Music that can the sense in fetters bind;
A goddess step; a lovely ardent mind,
That breaks the stubborn, and the haughty bows;
Eyes, whose refulgence petrifies the heart,
To glooms, to shades that can a light impart,
Lift high the lover's soul, or plunge it low;
Speech link'd by tenderness and dignity;
With many a sweetly-interrupted sigh;
Such are the witcheries that transform me so.
Nott.
Graces which liberal Heaven grants few to share:
Rare virtue seldom witness'd by mankind;
Experienced judgment with fair hair combined;
High heavenly beauty in a humble fair;
A gracefulness most excellent and rare;
A voice whose music sinks into the mind;
An angel gait; wit glowing and refined,
The hard to break, the high and haughty tear,
And brilliant eyes which turn the heart to stone,
Strong to enlighten hell and night, and take
Souls from our bodies and their own to make;
A speech where genius high yet gentle shone,
Evermore broken by the balmiest sighs
—Such magic spells transform'd me in this wise.
Macgregor.