to mine ear,
    So lit within, its very sufferings cheer;
    On these I live, and other aid disclaim. 
    That sun, alone which beameth for my sight,
    With his strong rays my ruin’d bosom burns
    Now in the eve of life as in its prime,
    And from afar so gives me warmth and light,
    Fresh and entire, at every hour, returns
    On memory the knot, the scene, the time.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLIII.

Per mezzo i boschi inospiti e selvaggi.

EVER THINKING ON HER, HE PASSES FEARLESS AND SAFE THROUGH THE FOREST OF ARDENNES.

      Through woods inhospitable, wild, I rove,
    Where armed travellers bend their fearful way;
    Nor danger dread, save from that sun of love,
    Bright sun! which darts a soul-enflaming ray. 
    Of her I sing, all-thoughtless as I stray,
    Whose sweet idea strong as heaven’s shall prove: 
    And oft methinks these pines, these beeches, move
    Like nymphs; ’mid which fond fancy sees her play
    I seem to hear her, when the whispering gale
    Steals through some thick-wove branch, when sings a bird,
    When purls the stream along yon verdant vale. 
    How grateful might this darksome wood appear,
    Where horror reigns, where scarce a sound is heard;
    But, ah! ’tis far from all my heart holds dear.

    ANON. 1777.

      Amid the wild wood’s lone and difficult ways,
    Where travel at great risk e’en men in arms,
    I pass secure—­for only me alarms
    That sun, which darts of living love the rays—­
    Singing fond thoughts in simple lays to her
    Whom time and space so little hide from me;
    E’en here her form, nor hers alone, I see,
    But maids and matrons in each beech and fir: 
    Methinks I hear her when the bird’s soft moan,
    The sighing leaves I hear, or through the dell
    Where its bright lapse some murmuring rill pursues. 
    Rarely of shadowing wood the silence lone,
    The solitary horror pleased so well,
    Except that of my sun too much I lose.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLIV

Mille piagge in un giorno e mille rivi.

TO BE NEAR HER RECOMPENSES HIM FOR ALL THE PERILS OF THE WAY.

      Love, who his votary wings in heart and feet,
    To the third heaven that lightly he may soar,
    In one short day has many a stream and shore
    Given to me, in famed Ardennes, to meet. 
    Unarm’d and single to have pass’d is sweet
    Where war in earnest strikes, nor tells before—­
    A helmless, sail-less ship ’mid ocean’s roar—­
    My breast with dark and fearful thoughts replete;
    But reach’d my dangerous journey’s far extreme,
    Remembering whence I came, and with whose wings,
    From too great courage conscious terror springs. 
    But this fair country and beloved stream
    With smiling welcome reassures my heart,
    Where dwells its sole light ready to depart.