and sorrow bred,
    Who hope in thee, are blind as I have been;
    I hoped in thee, and thus my heart’s loved queen
    Hath borne it mid her nerveless, kindred dead. 
    Her form decay’d—­its beauty still survives,
    For in high heaven that soul will ever bloom,
    With which each day I more enamour’d grow: 
    Thus though my locks are blanch’d, my hope revives
    In thinking on her home—­her soul’s high doom: 
    Alas! how changed the shrine she left below!

    WOLLASTON.

SONNET LII.

Sente l’ aura mia antica, e i dolci colli.

HE REVISITS VAUCLUSE.

      I feel the well-known gale; the hills I spy
    So pleasant, whence my fair her being drew,
    Which made these eyes, while Heaven was willing, shew
    Wishful, and gay; now sad, and never dry. 
    O feeble hopes!  O thoughts of vanity! 
    Wither’d the grass, the rills of turbid hue;
    And void and cheerless is that dwelling too,
    In which I live, in which I wish’d to die;
    Hoping its mistress might at length afford
    Some respite to my woes by plaintive sighs,
    And sorrows pour’d from her once-burning eyes. 
    I’ve served a cruel and ungrateful lord: 
    While lived my beauteous flame, my heart be fired;
    And o’er its ashes now I weep expired.

    NOTT.

      Once more, ye balmy gales, I feel you blow;
    Again, sweet hills, I mark the morning beams
    Gild your green summits; while your silver streams
    Through vales of fragrance undulating flow. 
    But you, ye dreams of bliss, no longer here
    Give life and beauty to the glowing scene: 
    For stern remembrance stands where you have been,
    And blasts the verdure of the blooming year. 
    O Laura!  Laura! in the dust with thee,
    Would I could find a refuge from despair! 
    Is this thy boasted triumph.  Love, to tear
    A heart thy coward malice dares not free;
    And bid it live, while every hope is fled,
    To weep, among the ashes of the dead?

    ANNE BANNERMAN.

SONNET LIII.

E questo ’l nido in che la mia Fenice.

THE SIGHT OF LAURA’S HOUSE REMINDS HIM OF HIS MISERY.

      Is this the nest in which my phoenix first
    Her plumage donn’d of purple and of gold,
    Beneath her wings who knew my heart to hold,
    For whom e’en yet its sighs and wishes burst? 
    Prime root in which my cherish’d ill had birth,
    Where is the fair face whence that bright light came. 
    Alive and glad which kept me in my flame? 
    Now bless’d in heaven as then alone on earth;
    Wretched and lonely thou hast left me here,
    Fond lingering by the scenes, with sorrows drown’d,
    To thee which consecrate I still revere. 
    Watching the hills as dark night gathers round,
    Whence its last flight to heaven thy soul did take,
    And where my day those bright eyes wont to make.