Strange pleasure!—­yet so often that within
    The human heart to reign
    Is found—­to woo and win
    Each new brief toy that men most sigh to gain: 
    And I am one from sadness who relief
    So draw, as if it still
    My study were to fill
    These eyes with softness, and this heart with grief: 
    As weighs with me in chief
    Nay rather with sole force,
    The language and the light
    Of those dear eyes to urge me on that course,
    So where its fullest source
    Long sorrow finds, I fix my often sight,
    And thus my heart and eyes like sufferers be,
    Which in love’s path have been twin pioneers to me.

    The golden tresses which should make, I ween,
    The sun with envy pine;
    And the sweet look serene,
    Where love’s own rays so bright and burning shine,
    That, ere its time, they make my strength decline,
    Each wise and truthful word,
    Rare in the world, which late
    She smiling gave, no more are seen or heard. 
    But this of all my fate
    Is hardest to endure,
    That here I am denied
    The gentle greeting, angel-like and pure,
    Which still to virtue’s side
    Inclined my heart with modest magic lure;
    So that, in sooth, I nothing hope again
    Of comfort more than this, how best to bear my pain.

    And—­with fit ecstacy my loss to mourn—­
    The soft hand’s snowy charm,
    The finely-rounded arm,
    The winning ways, by turns, that quiet scorn,
    Chaste anger, proud humility adorn,
    The fair young breast that shrined
    Intellect pure and high,
    Are now all hid the rugged Alp behind. 
    My trust were vain to try
    And see her ere I die,
    For, though awhile he dare
    Such dreams indulge, Hope ne’er can constant be,
    But falls back in despair
    Her, whom Heaven honours, there again to see,
    Where virtue, courtesy in her best mix,
    And where so oft I pray my future home to fix.

    My Song! if thou shalt see,
    Our common lady in that dear retreat,
    We both may hope that she
    Will stretch to thee her fair and fav’ring hand,
    Whence I so far am bann’d;
    —­Touch, touch it not, but, reverent at her feet,
    Tell her I will be there with earliest speed,
    A man of flesh and blood, or else a spirit freed.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XXX.

Orso, e’ non furon mai fiumi ne stagni.

HE COMPLAINS OF THE VEIL AND HAND OF LAURA, THAT THEY DEPRIVE HIM OF THE SIGHT OF HER EYES.

      Orso, my friend, was never stream, nor lake,
    Nor sea in whose broad lap all rivers fall,
    Nor shadow of high hill, or wood, or wall,
    Nor heaven-obscuring clouds which torrents make,
    Nor other obstacles my grief