Still had I sojourn’d in that Delphic cave
    Where young Apollo prophet first became,
    Verona, Mantua were not sole in fame,
    But Florence, too, her poet now might have: 
    But since the waters of that spring no more
    Enrich my land, needs must that I pursue
    Some other planet, and, with sickle new,
    Reap from my field of sticks and thorns its store. 
    Dried is the olive:  elsewhere turn’d the stream
    Whose source from famed Parnassus was derived. 
    Whereby of yore it throve in best esteem. 
    Me fortune thus, or fault perchance, deprived
    Of all good fruit—­unless eternal Jove
    Shower on my head some favour from above.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXXXIV.

Quando Amor i begli occhi a terra inchina.

LAURA SINGS.

      If Love her beauteous eyes to earth incline,
    And all her soul concentring in a sigh,
    Then breathe it in her voice of melody,
    Floating clear, soft, angelical, divine;
    My heart, forth-stolen so gently, I resign,
    And, all my hopes and wishes changed, I cry,—­
    “Oh, may my last breath pass thus blissfully,
    If Heaven so sweet a death for me design!”
    But the rapt sense, by such enchantment bound,
    And the strong will, thus listening to possess
    Heaven’s joys on earth, my spirit’s flight delay. 
    And thus I live; and thus drawn out and wound
    Is my life’s thread, in dreamy blessedness,
    By this sole syren from the realms of day.

    DACRE.

      Her bright and love-lit eyes on earth she bends—­
    Concentres her rich breath in one full sigh—­
    A brief pause—­a fond hush—­her voice on high,
    Clear, soft, angelical, divine, ascends. 
    Such rapine sweet through all my heart extends,
    New thoughts and wishes so within me vie,
    Perforce I say,—­“Thus be it mine to die,
    If Heaven to me so fair a doom intends!”
    But, ah! those sounds whose sweetness laps my sense,
    The strong desire of more that in me yearns,
    Restrain my spirit in its parting hence. 
    Thus at her will I live; thus winds and turns
    The yarn of life which to my lot is given,
    Earth’s single siren, sent to us from heaven.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXXXV.

Amor mi manda quel dolce pensero.

LIFE WILL FAIL HIM BEFORE HOPE.

      Love to my mind recalling that sweet thought,
    The ancient confidant our lives between,
    Well comforts me, and says I ne’er have been
    So near as now to what I hoped and sought. 
    I, who at times with dangerous falsehood fraught,
    At times with partial truth, his words have seen,
    Live in suspense, still missing