She fear’d me once—­now heavenly confidence
    Reveals my heart’s first hope’s unchanging stay;
    A word, a look, could this alone convey,
    My heart she reads now, stripp’d of earth’s defence. 
    And thus I hope, she for my heavy sighs
    To heaven complains, to me she pity shows
    By sympathetic visits in my dream: 
    And when this mortal temple breathless lies,
    Oh! may she greet my soul, enclosed by those
    Whom heaven and virtue love—­our friends supreme.

    WOLLASTON.

SONNET LXII.

Vidi fra mille donne una gia tale.

BEAUTY SHOWED ITSELF IN, AND DISAPPEARED WITH, LAURA.

      ’Mid many fair one such by me was seen
    That amorous fears my heart did instant seize,
    Beholding her—­nor false the images—­
    Equal to angels in her heavenly mien. 
    Nothing in her was mortal or terrene,
    As one whom nothing short of heaven can please;
    My soul well train’d for her to burn and freeze
    Sought in her wake to mount the blue serene. 
    But ah! too high for earthly wings to rise
    Her pitch, and soon she wholly pass’d from sight: 
    The very thought still makes me cold and numb;
    O beautiful and high and lustrous eyes,
    Where Death, who fills the world with grief and fright,
    Found entrance in so fair a form to come.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET LXIII.

Tornami a mente, anzi v’ e dentro quella.

SHE IS SO FIXED IN HIS HEART THAT AT TIMES HE BELIEVES HER STILL ALIVE, AND IS FORCED TO RECALL THE DATE OF HER DEATH.

      Oh! to my soul for ever she returns;
    Or rather Lethe could not blot her thence,
    Such as she was when first she struck my sense,
    In that bright blushing age when beauty burns: 
    So still I see her, bashful as she turns
    Retired into herself, as from offence: 
    I cry—­“’Tis she! she still has life and sense: 
    Oh, speak to me, my love!”—­Sometimes she spurns
    My call; sometimes she seems to answer straight: 
    Then, starting from my waking dream, I say,—­
    “Alas! poor wretch, thou art of mind bereft! 
    Forget’st thou the first hour of the sixth day
    Of April, the three hundred, forty eight,
    And thousandth year,—­when she her earthly mansion left?”

    MOREHEAD.

      My mind recalls her; nay, her home is there,
    Nor can Lethean draught drive thence her form,
    I see that star’s pure ray her spirit warm,
    Whose grace and spring-time beauty she doth wear. 
    As thus my vision paints her charms so rare,
    That none to such perfection may conform,
    I cry, “’Tis she! death doth to life transform!”
    And then to hear that voice, I wake my prayer.