Ov’ e la fronte che con picciol cenno.

HE ENUMERATES AND EULOGISES THE GRACES OF LAURA.

      Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led
    My raptured heart at will, now here, now there? 
    Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere,
    Which o’er my darkling path their radiance shed? 
    Where is true worth, and wit, and wisdom fled? 
    The courteous phrase, the melting accent, where? 
    Where, group’d in one rich form, the beauties rare,
    Which long their magic influence o’er me shed? 
    Where is the shade, within whose sweet recess
    My wearied spirit still forgot its sighs,
    And all my thoughts their constant record found? 
    Where, where is she, my life’s sole arbitress?—­
    Ah, wretched world! and wretched ye, mine eyes
    (Of her pure light bereft) which aye with tears are drown’d.

    WRANGHAM.

      Where is that face, whose slightest air could move
    My trembling heart, and strike the springs of love? 
    That heaven, where two fair stars, with genial ray,
    Shed their kind influence on life’s dim way? 
    Where are that science, sense, and worth confess’d? 
    That speech by virtue, by the graces dress’d? 
    Where are those beauties, where those charms combined,
    That caused this long captivity of mind? 
    Where the dear shade of all that once was fair,
    The source, the solace, of each amorous care—­
    My heart’s sole sovereign, Nature’s only boast? 
    —­Lost to the world, to me for ever lost!

    LANGHORNE.

SONNET XXXII.

Quanta invidia ti porto, avara terra.

HE ENVIES EARTH, HEAVEN, AND DEATH THEIR POSSESSION OF HIS TREASURE.

      O earth, whose clay-cold mantle shrouds that face,
    And veils those eyes that late so brightly shone,
    Whence all that gave delight on earth was known,
    How much I envy thee that harsh embrace! 
    O heaven, that in thy airy courts confined
    That purest spirit, when from earth she fled,
    And sought the mansions of the righteous dead;
    How envious, thus to leave my panting soul behind! 
    O angels, that in your seraphic choir
    Received her sister-soul, and now enjoy
    Still present, those delights without alloy,
    Which my fond heart must still in vain desire! 
    In her I lived—­in her my life decays;
    Yet envious Fate denies to end my hapless days.

    WOODHOUSELEE.

      What envy of the greedy earth I bear,
    That holds from me within its cold embrace
    The light, the meaning, of that angel face,
    On which to gaze could soften e’en despair. 
    What envy of the saints, in realms so fair,
    Who eager seem’d, from that bright form of grace
    The spirit pure to summon