met its seal,
    Had she but hearken’d to my love’s appeal,
    Who, throned in heaven, hath fled this world’s alloy. 
    My blinded love, and yet more stubborn mind,
    Resistless urged me to my bosom’s shame,
    And where my soul’s destruction I had met: 
    But blessed she who bade life’s current find
    A holier course, who still’d my spirit’s flame
    With gentle hope that soul might triumph yet.

    WOLLASTON.

SONNET XXIII.

Quand’ io veggio dal ciel scender l’ Aurora.

MORN RENDERS HIS GRIEF MORE POIGNANT.

      When from the heavens I see Aurora beam,
    With rosy-tinctured cheek and golden hair,
    Love bids my face the hue of sadness wear: 
    “There Laura dwells!” I with a sigh exclaim. 
    Thou knowest well the hour that shall redeem,
    Happy Tithonus, thy much-valued fair;
    But not to her I love can I repair,
    Till death extinguishes this vital flame. 
    Yet need’st thou not thy separation mourn;
    Certain at evening’s close is the return
    Of her, who doth not thy hoar locks despise;
    But my nights sad, my days are render’d drear,
    By her, who bore my thoughts to yonder skies,
    And only a remember’d name left here.

    NOTT.

      When from the east appears the purple ray
    Of morn arising, and salutes the eyes
    That wear the night in watching for the day,
    Thus speaks my heart:  “In yonder opening skies,
    In yonder fields of bliss, my Laura lies!”
    Thou sun, that know’st to wheel thy burning car,
    Each eve, to the still surface of the deep,
    And there within thy Thetis’ bosom sleep;
    Oh! could I thus my Laura’s presence share,
    How would my patient heart its sorrows bear! 
    Adored in life, and honour’d in the dust,
    She that in this fond breast for ever reigns
    Has pass’d the gulph of death!—­To deck that bust,
    No trace of her but the sad name remains.

    WOODHOUSELEE.

SONNET XXIV.

Gli occhi di ch’ io parlai si caldamente.

HIS LYRE IS NOW ATTUNED ONLY TO WOE.

      The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mould,
    So long the theme of my impassion’d lay,
    Charms which so stole me from myself away,
    That strange to other men the course I hold;
    The crisped locks of pure and lucid gold,
    The lightning of the angelic smile, whose ray
    To earth could all of paradise convey,
    A little dust are now!—­to feeling cold! 
    And yet I live!—­but that I live bewail,
    Sunk the loved light that through the tempest led
    My shatter’d bark, bereft of mast and sail: 
    Hush’d be for aye the song that breathed love’s fire! 
    Lost is the theme on which my fancy fed,
    And turn’d to mourning my once tuneful lyre.