the just mean,
    ’Twixt yea and nay a constant battle fought. 
    Meanwhile the years pass on:  and I behold
    In my true glass the adverse time draw near
    Her promise and my hope which limits here. 
    So let it be:  alone I grow not old;
    Changes not e’en with age my loving troth;
    My fear is this—­the short life left us both.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXXXVI.

Pien d’ un vago pensier, che me desvia.

HIS TONGUE IS TIED BY EXCESS OF PASSION.

      Such vain thought as wonted to mislead me
    In desert hope, by well-assured moan,
    Makes me from company to live alone,
    In following her whom reason bids me flee. 
    She fleeth as fast by gentle cruelty;
    And after her my heart would fain be gone,
    But armed sighs my way do stop anon,
    ’Twixt hope and dread locking my liberty;
    Yet as I guess, under disdainful brow
    One beam of ruth is in her cloudy look: 
    Which comforteth the mind, that erst for fear shook: 
    And therewithal bolded I seek the way how
    To utter the smart I suffer within;
    But such it is, I not how to begin.

    WYATT.

      Full of a tender thought, which severs me
    From all my kind, a lonely musing thing,
    From my breast’s solitude I sometimes spring,
    Still seeking her whom most I ought to flee;
    And see her pass though soft, so adverse she,
    That my soul spreads for flight a trembling wing: 
    Of armed sighs such legions does she bring,
    The fair antagonist of Love and me. 
    Yet from beneath that dark disdainful brow,
    Or much I err, one beam of pity flows,
    Soothing with partial warmth my heart’s distress: 
    Again my bosom feels its wonted glow! 
    But when my simple hope I would disclose,
    My o’er-fraught faltering tongue the crowded thoughts oppress.

    WRANGHAM.

SONNET CXXXVII.

Piu volte gia dal bel sembiante umano.

LOVE UNMANS HIS RESOLUTION.

      Oft as her angel face compassion wore,
    With tears whose eloquence scarce fails to move,
    With bland and courteous speech, I boldly strove
    To soothe my foe, and in meek guise implore: 
    But soon her eyes inspire vain hopes no more;
    For all my fortune, all my fate in love,
    My life, my death, the good, the ills I prove,
    To her are trusted by one sovereign power. 
    Hence ’tis, whene’er my lips would silence break,
    Scarce can I hear the accents which I vent,
    By passion render’d spiritless and weak. 
    Ah! now I find that fondness to excess
    Fetters the tongue, and overpowers intent: 
    Faint is the flame that language can express!