grief, for I
    To see my future fate was ill supplied;
    This Love reveal’d within her beauteous eye
    Elsewhere my hopes to guide: 
    Too late he dies, disconsolate and sad,
    Whom death a little earlier had made glad.

    In those bright eyes, where wont my heart to dwell,
    Until by envy my hard fortune stirr’d
    Rose from so rich a temple to expel,
    Love with his proper hand had character’d
    In lines of pity what, ere long, I ween
    The issue of my old desire had been. 
    Dying alone, and not my life with me,
    Comely and sweet it then had been to die,
    Leaving my life’s best part unscathed and free;
    But now my fond hopes lie
    Dead in her silent dust:  a secret chill
    Shoots through me when I think that I live still.

    If my poor intellect had but the force
    To help my need, and if no other lure
    Had led it from the plain and proper course,
    Upon my lady’s brow ’twere easy sure
    To have read this truth, “Here all thy pleasure dies,
    And hence thy lifelong trial dates its rise.” 
    My spirit then had gently pass’d away
    In her dear presence from all mortal care;
    Freed from this troublesome and heavy clay,
    Mounting, before her, where
    Angels and saints prepared on high her place,
    Whom I but follow now with slow sad pace.

    My song! if one there be
    Who in his love finds happiness and rest,
    Tell him this truth from me,
    “Die, while thou still art bless’d,
    For death betimes is comfort, not dismay,
    And who can rightly die needs no delay.”

    MACGREGOR.

SESTINA I.

Mia benigna fortuna e ’l viver lieto.

IN HIS MISERY HE DESIRES DEATH THE MORE HE REMEMBERS HIS PAST CONTENTMENT AND COMFORT.

      My favouring fortune and my life of joy,
    My days so cloudless, and my tranquil nights,
    The tender sigh, the pleasing power of song,
    Which gently wont to sound in verse and rhyme,
    Suddenly darken’d into grief and tears,
    Make me hate life and inly pray for death!

    O cruel, grim, inexorable Death! 
    How hast thou dried my every source of joy,
    And left me to drag on a life of tears,
    Through darkling days and melancholy nights. 
    My heavy sighs no longer meet in rhyme,
    And my hard martyrdom exceeds all song!

    Where now is vanish’d my once amorous song? 
    To talk of anger and to treat with death;
    Where the fond verses, where the happy rhyme
    Welcomed by gentle hearts with pensive joy? 
    Where now Love’s communings that cheer’d my nights? 
    My sole theme, my one thought, is now but tears!