And seeth Love, to punish its misdeeds,
    Lighten her piercing eyes with worse disdain. 
    Wherefore—­as one who fears the impending blow
    Of angry Jove—­it back in haste retires,
    For great fears ever master great desires;
    But the cold fire and shrinking hopes which so
    Lodge in my heart, transparent as a glass,
    O’er her sweet face at times make gleams of grace to pass.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXVI.

Non Tesin, Po, Varo, Arno, Adige e Tebro.

HE EXTOLS THE LAUREL AND ITS FAVOURITE STREAM.

      Not all the streams that water the bright earth,
    Not all the trees to which its breast gives birth,
    Can cooling drop or healing balm impart
    To slack the fire which scorches my sad heart,
    As one fair brook which ever weeps with me,
    Or, which I praise and sing, as one dear tree. 
    This only help I find amid Love’s strife;
    Wherefore it me behoves to live my life
    In arms, which else from me too rapid goes. 
    Thus on fresh shore the lovely laurel grows;
    Who planted it, his high and graceful thought
    ’Neath its sweet shade, to Sorga’s murmurs, wrote.

    MACGREGOR.

[IMITATION.]

      Nor Arne, nor Mincius, nor stately Tiber,
    Sebethus, nor the flood into whose streams
    He fell who burnt the world with borrow’d beams;
    Gold-rolling Tagus, Munda, famous Iber,
    Sorgue, Rhone, Loire, Garron, nor proud-bank’d Seine,
    Peneus, Phasis, Xanthus, humble Ladon,
    Nor she whose nymphs excel her who loved Adon,
    Fair Tamesis, nor Ister large, nor Rhine,
    Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Hermus, Gange,
    Pearly Hydaspes, serpent-like Meander,—­
    The gulf bereft sweet Hero her Leander—­
    Nile, that far, far his hidden head doth range,
    Have ever had so rare a cause of praise
    As Ora, where this northern Phoenix stays.

    DRUMMOND.

BALLATA VI.

Di tempo in tempo mi si fa men dura.

THOUGH SHE BE LESS SEVERE, HE IS STILL NOT CONTENTED AND TRANQUIL AT HEART.

      From time to time more clemency for me
    In that sweet smile and angel form I trace;
    Seem too her lovely face
    And lustrous eyes at length more kind to be. 
    Yet, if thus honour’d, wherefore do my sighs
    In doubt and sorrow flow,
    Signs that too truly show
    My anguish’d desperate life to common eyes? 
    Haply if, where she is, my glance I bend,
    This harass’d heart to cheer,
    Methinks that Love I hear
    Pleading my cause, and see him succour lend. 
    Not therefore at an end the strife I deem,
    Nor in sure rest my heart at last esteem;
    For Love most burns within
    When Hope most pricks us on the way to win.