To quench for ever my life’s genial light,
    And in her sad sweet face ’twas written so. 
    Surely a veil was placed around mine eyes,
    That blinded me to all before my sight,
    And sank at once my life in deepest woe.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET LIX.

Quel vago, dolce, caro, onesto sguardo.

HE SHOULD HAVE FORESEEN HIS LOSS IN THE UNUSUAL LUSTRE OF HER EYES.

      That glance of hers, pure, tender, clear, and sweet,
    Methought it said, “Take what thou canst while nigh;
    For here no more thou’lt see me, till on high
    From earth have mounted thy slow-moving feet.” 
    O intellect than forest pard more fleet! 
    Yet slow and dull thy sorrow to descry,
    How didst thou fail to see in her bright eye
    What since befell, whence I my ruin meet. 
    Silently shining with a fire sublime,
    They said, “O friendly lights, which long have been
    Mirrors to us where gladly we were seen,
    Heaven waits for you, as ye shall know in time;
    Who bound us to the earth dissolves our bond,
    But wills in your despite that you shall live beyond.”

    MACGREGOR.

CANZONE V.

Solea dalla fontana di mia vita.

MEMORY IS HIS ONLY SOLACE AND SUPPORT.

      I who was wont from life’s best fountain far
    So long to wander, searching land and sea,
    Pursuing not my pleasure, but my star,
    And alway, as Love knows who strengthen’d me,
    Ready in bitter exile to depart,
    For hope and memory both then fed my heart;
    Alas! now wring my hands, and to unkind
    And angry Fortune, which away has reft
    That so sweet hope, my armour have resign’d;
    And, memory only left,
    I feed my great desire on that alone,
    Whence frail and famish’d is my spirit grown.

    As haply by the way, if want of food
    Compel the traveller to relax his speed,
    Losing that strength which first his steps endued,
    So feeling, for my weary life, the need
    Of that dear nourishment Death rudely stole,
    Leaving the world all bare, and sad my soul,
    From time to time fair pleasures pall, my sweet
    To bitter turns, fear rises, and hopes fail,
    My course, though brief, that I shall e’er complete: 
    Cloudlike before the gale,
    To win some resting-place from rest I flee,
    —­If such indeed my doom, so let it be.

    Never to mortal life could I incline,
    —­Be witness, Love, with whom I parley oft—­
    Except for her who was its light and mine. 
    And since, below extinguish’d, shines aloft
    The life in which I lived, if lawful ’twere,
    My chief desire would be to follow her: 
    But mine is ample cause of