NOTT.

      Oft have I meant my passion to declare,
    When fancy read compliance in her eyes;
    And oft with courteous speech, with love-lorn sighs,
    Have wish’d to soften my obdurate fair: 
    But let that face one look of anger wear,
    The intention fades; for all that fate supplies,
    Or good, or ill, all, all that I can prize,
    My life, my death, Love trusts to her dear care. 
    E’en I can scarcely hear my amorous moan,
    So much my voice by passion is confined;
    So faint, so timid are my accents grown! 
    Ah! now the force of love I plainly see;
    What can the tongue, or what the impassion’d mind? 
    He that could speak his love, ne’er loved like me.

    ANON. 1777.

SONNET CXXXVIII.

Giunto m’ ha Amor fra belle e crude braccia.

HE CANNOT END HER CRUELTY, NOR SHE HIS HOPE.

      Me Love has left in fair cold arms to lie,
    Which kill me wrongfully:  if I complain,
    My martyrdom is doubled, worse my pain: 
    Better in silence love, and loving die! 
    For she the frozen Rhine with burning eye
    Can melt at will, the hard rock break in twain,
    So equal to her beauty her disdain
    That others’ pleasure wakes her angry sigh. 
    A breathing moving marble all the rest,
    Of very adamant is made her heart,
    So hard, to move it baffles all my art. 
    Despite her lowering brow and haughty breast,
    One thing she cannot, my fond heart deter
    From tender hopes and passionate sighs for her.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXXXIX.

O Invidia, nemica di virtute.

ENVY MAY DISTURB, BUT CANNOT DESTROY HIS HOPE.

      O deadly Envy, virtue’s constant foe,
    With good and lovely eager to contest! 
    Stealthily, by what way, in that fair breast
    Hast entrance found? by what arts changed it so? 
    Thence by the roots my weal hast thou uptorn,
    Too blest in love hast shown me to that fair
    Who welcomed once my chaste and humble prayer,
    But seems to treat me now with hate and scorn. 
    But though you may by acts severe and ill
    Sigh at my good and smile at my distress,
    You cannot change for me a single thought. 
    Not though a thousand times each day she kill
    Can I or hope in her or love her less. 
    For though she scare, Love confidence has taught.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXL.

Mirando ‘l sol de’ begli occhi sereno.

THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.