Her form portray’d within the lucid stream
    Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn,
    Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam
    So lovely fair, that Leda’s self might say,
    Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn
    A star when cover’d by the solar ray: 
    And, as o’er wilds I stray
    Where the eye nought but savage nature meets,
    There Fancy most her brightest tints employs;
    But when rude truth destroys
    The loved illusion of those dreamed sweets,
    I sit me down on the cold rugged stone,
    Less coid, less dead than I, and think, and weep alone.

    Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime,
    On which no neighbouring height its shadow flings,
    Led by desire intense the steep I climb;
    And tracing in the boundless space each woe,
    Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings,
    Tears, that bespeak the heart o’erfraught, will flow: 
    While, viewing all below,
    From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide
    The beauteous form, still absent and still near! 
    Then, chiding soft the tear,
    I whisper low, haply she too has sigh’d
    That thou art far away:  a thought so sweet
    Awhile my labouring soul will of its burthen cheat.

    Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine bound,
    Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene,
    There by a murmuring stream may I be found,
    Whose gentle airs around
    Waft grateful odours from the laurel green;
    Nought but my empty form roams here unblest,
    There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my breast.

    DACRE.

SONNET C.

Poi che ‘l cammin m’ e chiuso di mercede.

THOUGH FAR FROM LAURA, SOLITARY AND UNHAPPY, ENVY STILL PURSUES HIM.

      Since mercy’s door is closed, alas! to me,
    And hopeless paths my poor life separate
    From her in whom, I know not by what fate,
    The guerdon lay of all my constancy,
    My heart that lacks not other food, on sighs
    I feed:  to sorrow born, I live on tears: 
    Nor therefore mourn I:  sweeter far appears
    My present grief than others can surmise. 
    On thy dear portrait rests alone my view,
    Which nor Praxiteles nor Xeuxis drew,
    But a more bold and cunning pencil framed. 
    What shore can hide me, or what distance shield,
    If by my cruel exile yet untamed
    Insatiate Envy finds me here concealed?

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CI.

Io canterei d’ Amor si novamente.

REPLY TO A SONNET OF JACOPO DA LENTINO.