MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLV.

Amor mi sprona in un tempo ed affrena.

HE HEARS THE VOICE OF REASON, BUT CANNOT OBEY.

      Love in one instant spurs me and restrains,
    Assures and frightens, freezes me and burns,
    Smiles now and scowls, now summons me and spurns,
    In hope now holds me, plunges now in pains: 
    Now high, now low, my weary heart he hurls,
    Until fond passion loses quite the path,
    And highest pleasure seems to stir but wrath—­
    My harass’d mind on such strange errors feeds! 
    A friendly thought there points the proper track,
    Not of such grief as from the full eye breaks,
    To go where soon it hopes to be at ease,
    But, as if greater power thence turn’d it back,
    Despite itself, another way it takes,
    And to its own slow death and mine agrees.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLVI.

Geri, quando talor meco s’ adira.

HE APPEASES HER BY HUMILITY, AND EXHORTS A FRIEND TO DO LIKEWISE.

      When my sweet foe, so haughty oft and high,
    Moved my brief ire no more my sight can thole,
    One comfort is vouchsafed me lest I die,
    Through whose sole strength survives my harass’d soul;
    Where’er her eyes—­all light which would deny
    To my sad life—­in scorn or anger roll,
    Mine with such true humility reply,
    Soon their meek glances all her rage control,
    Were it not so, methinks I less could brook
    To gaze on hers than on Medusa’s mien,
    Which turn’d to marble all who met her look. 
    My friend, act thus with thine, for closed I ween
    All other aid, and nothing flight avails
    Against the wings on which our master sails.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CXLVII.

Po, ben puo’ tu portartene la scorza.

TO THE RIVER PO, ON QUITTING LAURA.

      Thou Po to distant realms this frame mayst bear,
    On thy all-powerful, thy impetuous tide;
    But the free spirit that within doth bide
    Nor for thy might, nor any might doth care: 
    Not varying here its course, nor shifting there,
    Upon the favouring gale it joys to glide;
    Plying its wings toward the laurel’s pride,
    In spite of sails or oars, of sea or air. 
    Monarch of floods, magnificent and strong,
    That meet’st the sun as he leads on the day,
    But in the west dost quit a fairer light;
    Thy curved course this body wafts along;
    My spirit on Love’s pinions speeds its way,
    And to its darling home directs its flight!

    NOTT.