Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
    Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
    My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
    Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
    Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
    And in the world how vast the web it weaves. 
    A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
    Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been. 
    By these two contrary and mix’d extremes,
    With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
    To stand ’tween misery and bliss she seems: 
    Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
    But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
    For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLI.

Fera stella (se ’l cielo ha forza in noi).

TO PINE FOR HER IS BETTER THAN TO ENJOY HAPPINESS WITH ANY OTHER.

      Ill-omen’d was that star’s malignant gleam
    That ruled my hapless birth; and dim the morn
    That darted on my infant eyes the beam;
    And harsh the wail, that told a man was born;
    And hard the sterile earth, which first was worn
    Beneath my infant feet; but harder far,
    And harsher still, the tyrant maid, whose scorn,
    In league with savage Love, inflamed the war
    Of all my passions.—­Love himself more tame,
    With pity soothes my ills; while that cold heart,
    Insensible to the devouring flame
    Which wastes my vitals, triumphs in my smart. 
    One thought is comfort—­that her scorn to bear,
    Excels e’er prosperous love, with other earthly fair.

    WOODHOUSELEE.

      An evil star usher’d my natal morn
    (If heaven have o’er us power, as some have said),
    Hard was the cradle where I lay when born,
    And hard the earth where first my young feet play’d;
    Cruel the lady who, with eyes of scorn
    And fatal bow, whose mark I still was made,
    Dealt me the wound, O Love, which since I mourn
    Whose cure thou only, with those arms, canst aid. 
    But, ah! to thee my torments pleasure bring: 
    She, too, severer would have wished the blow,
    A spear-head thrust, and not an arrow-sting. 
    One comfort rests—­better to suffer so
    For her, than others to enjoy:  and I,
    Sworn on thy golden dart, on this for death rely.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLII.

Quando mi vene innanzi il tempo e ’l loco.

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY LOVE.

      The time and scene where I a slave became
    When I remember, and the knot so dear
    Which Love’s own hand so firmly fasten’d here,
    Which made my bitter sweet, my grief a game;
    My heart, with fuel stored, is, as a flame
    Of those soft sighs familiar