High birth in humble life, reserved yet kind,
    On youth’s gay flower ripe fruits of age and rare,
    A virtuous heart, therewith a lofty mind,
    A happy spirit in a pensive air;
    Her planet, nay, heaven’s king, has fitly shrined
    All gifts and graces in this lady fair,
    True honour, purest praises, worth refined,
    Above what rapt dreams of best poets are. 
    Virtue and Love so rich in her unite,
    With natural beauty dignified address,
    Gestures that still a silent grace express,
    And in her eyes I know not what strange light,
    That makes the noonday dark, the dusk night clear,
    Bitter the sweet, and e’en sad absence dear.

    MACGREGOR.

      Though nobly born, so humbly calm she dwells,
    So bright her intellect—­so pure her mind—­
    The blossom and its bloom in her we find;
    With pensive look, her heart with mirth rebels: 
    Thus by her planets’ union she excels,
    (Nay—­His, the stars’ proud sov’reign, who enshrined
    There honour, worth, and fortitude combined!)
    Which to the bard inspired, his hope dispels. 
    Love blooms in her, but ’tis his home most pure;
    Her daily virtues blend with native grace;
    Her noiseless movements speak, though she is mute: 
    Such power her eyes, they can the day obscure,
    Illume the night,—­the honey’s sweetness chase,
    And wake its stream, where gall doth oft pollute.

    WOLLASTON.

SONNET CLXXX.

Tutto ’l di piango; e poi la notte, quando.

HER CRUELTY RENDERS LIFE WORSE THAN DEATH TO HIM.

      Through the long lingering day, estranged from rest,
    My sorrows flow unceasing; doubly flow,
    Painful prerogative of lover’s woe! 
    In that still hour, when slumber soothes th’ unblest. 
    With such deep anguish is my heart opprest,
    So stream mine eyes with tears!  Of things below
    Most miserable I; for Cupid’s bow
    Has banish’d quiet from this heaving breast. 
    Ah me! while thus in suffering, morn to morn
    And eve to eve succeeds, of death I view
    (So should this life be named) one-half gone by—­
    Yet this I weep not, but another’s scorn;
    That she, my friend, so tender and so true,
    Should see me hopeless burn, and yet her aid deny.

    WRANGHAM.

SONNET CLXXXI.

Gia desiai con si giusta querela.

HE LIVES DESTITUTE OF ALL HOPE SAVE THAT OF RENDERING HER IMMORTAL.

      Erewhile I labour’d with complaint so true,
    And in such fervid rhymes to make me heard,
    Seem’d as at last some spark of pity stirr’d
    In the hard heart which frost in summer knew. 
    Th’ unfriendly cloud, whose cold veil o’er it grew,