Oft have I pray’d to Love, and still I pray,
    My charming agony, my bitter joy! 
    That he would crave your grace, if consciously
    From the right path my guilty footsteps stray. 
    That Reason, which o’er happier minds holds sway,
    Is quell’d of Appetite, I not deny;
    And hence, through tracks my better thoughts would fly,
    The victor hurries me perforce away,
    You, in whose bosom Genius, Virtue reign
    With mingled blaze lit by auspicious skies—­
    Ne’er shower’d kind star its beams on aught so rare! 
    You, you should say with pity, not disdain;
    “How could he ’scape, lost wretch! these lightning eyes—­
    So passionate he, and I so direly fair?”

    WRANGHAM.

SONNET CCIII.

L’ alto signor, dinanzi a cui non vale.

HIS SORROW FOR THE ILLNESS OF LAURA INCREASES, NOT LESSENS, HIS FLAME.

      The sovereign Lord, ’gainst whom of no avail
    Concealment, or resistance is, or flight,
    My mind had kindled to a new delight
    By his own amorous and ardent ail: 
    Though his first blow, transfixing my best mail
    Were mortal sure, to push his triumph quite
    He took a shaft of sorrow in his right,
    So my soft heart on both sides to assail. 
    A burning wound the one shed fire and flame,
    The other tears, which ever grief distils,
    Through eyes for your weak health that are as rills. 
    But no relief from either fountain came
    My bosom’s conflagration to abate,
    Nay, passion grew by very pity great.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET CCIV.

Mira quel colle, o stanco mio cor vago.

HE BIDS HIS HEART RETURN TO LAURA, NOT PERCEIVING THAT IT HAD NEVER LEFT HER.

P. Look on that hill, my fond but harass’d heart! 
Yestreen we left her there, who ’gan to take
Some care of us and friendlier looks to dart;
Now from our eyes she draws a very lake: 
Return alone—­I love to be apart—­
Try, if perchance the day will ever break
To mitigate our still increasing smart,
Partner and prophet of my lifelong ache.
H. O wretch! in whom vain thoughts and idle swell,
Thou, who thyself hast tutor’d to forget,
Speak’st to thy heart as if ’twere with thee yet? 
When to thy greatest bliss thou saidst farewell,
Thou didst depart alone:  it stay’d with her,
Nor cares from those bright eyes, its home, to stir.

MACGREGOR.

SONNET CCV.

Fresco ambroso fiorito e verde colle.

HE CONGRATULATES HIS HEART ON ITS REMAINING WITH HER.