I urge in vain
    To heedless beings all those pangs I bear;
    Of the false world, of an unpitying fair,
    Of Love, and fickle fortune I complain! 
    From eve’s last glance, till morning’s earliest ray,
    Sleep shuns my couch; rest quits my tearful eye;
    And my rack’d breast heaves many a plaintive sigh. 
    Then bright Aurora cheers the rising day,
    But cheers not me—­for to my sorrowing heart
    One sun alone can cheering light impart!

    ANON. 1777.

SONNET CLXXVIII.

S’ una fede amorosa, un cor non finto.

THE MISERY OF HIS LOVE.

      If faith most true, a heart that cannot feign,
    If Love’s sweet languishment and chasten’d thought,
    And wishes pure by nobler feelings taught,
    If in a labyrinth wanderings long and vain,
    If on the brow each pang pourtray’d to bear,
    Or from the heart low broken sounds to draw,
    Withheld by shame, or check’d by pious awe,
    If on the faded cheek Love’s hue to wear,
    If than myself to hold one far more dear,
    If sighs that cease not, tears that ever flow,
    Wrung from the heart by all Love’s various woe,
    In absence if consumed, and chill’d when near,—­
    If these be ills in which I waste my prime,
    Though I the sufferer be, yours, lady, is the crime.

    DACRE.

      If fondest faith, a heart to guile unknown,
    By melting languors the soft wish betray’d;
    If chaste desires, with temper’d warmth display’d;
    If weary wanderings, comfortless and lone;
    If every thought in every feature shown,
    Or in faint tones and broken sounds convey’d,
    As fear or shame my pallid cheek array’d
    In violet hues, with Love’s thick blushes strown;
    If more than self another to hold dear;
    If still to weep and heave incessant sighs,
    To feed on passion, or in grief to pine,
    To glow when distant, and to freeze when near,—­
    If hence my bosom’s anguish takes its rise,
    Thine, lady, is the crime, the punishment is mine.

    WRANGHAM.

SONNET CLXXXIX.

Dodici donne onestamente lasse.

HAPPY WHO STEERED THE BOAT, OR DROVE THE CAR, WHEREIN SHE SAT AND SANG.

      Twelve ladies, their rare toil who lightly bore,
    Rather twelve stars encircling a bright sun,
    I saw, gay-seated a small bark upon,
    Whose like the waters never cleaved before: 
    Not such took Jason to the fleece of yore,
    Whose fatal gold has ev’ry heart now won,
    Nor such the shepherd boy’s, by whom undone
    Troy mourns, whose fame has pass’d the wide world o’er. 
    I saw them next on a triumphal car,
    Where, known by her chaste cherub ways, aside
    My Laura sate and to them sweetly sung. 
    Things not of earth to man such visions are! 
    Blest Tiphys! blest Automedon! to guide
    The bark, or car of band so bright and young.