That sun, which ever signall’d the right road,
    Where flash’d her own bright feet, to heaven to fly,
    Returning to the Eternal Sun on high,
    Has quench’d my light, and cast her earthly load;
    Thus, lone and weary, my oft steps have trode,
    As some wild animal, the sere woods by,
    Fleeing with heavy heart and downcast eye
    The world which since to me a blank has show’d. 
    Still with fond search each well-known spot I pace
    Where once I saw her:  Love, who grieves me so,
    My only guide, directs me where to go. 
    I find her not:  her every sainted trace
    Seeks, in bright realms above, her parent star
    From grisly Styx and black Avernus far.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XXXIX.

Io pensava assai destro esser sull’ ale.

UNWORTHY TO HAVE LOOKED UPON HER, HE IS STILL MORE SO TO ATTEMPT HER PRAISES.

      I thought me apt and firm of wing to rise
    (Not of myself, but him who trains us all)
    In song, to numbers fitting the fair thrall
    Which Love once fasten’d and which Death unties. 
    Slow now and frail, the task too sorely tries,
    As a great weight upon a sucker small: 
    “Who leaps,” I said, “too high may midway fall: 
    Man ill accomplishes what Heaven denies.” 
    So far the wing of genius ne’er could fly—­
    Poor style like mine and faltering tongue much less—­
    As Nature rose, in that rare fabric, high. 
    Love follow’d Nature with such full success
    In gracing her, no claim could I advance
    Even to look, and yet was bless’d by chance.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XL.

Quella per cui con Sorga ho cangiat’ Arno.

HE ATTEMPTS TO PAINT HER BEAUTIES, BUT NOT HER VIRTUES.

      She, for whose sake fair Arno I resign,
    And for free poverty court-affluence spurn,
    Has known to sour the precious sweets to turn
    On which I lived, for which I burn and pine. 
    Though since, the vain attempt has oft been mine
    That future ages from my song should learn
    Her heavenly beauties, and like me should burn,
    My poor verse fails her sweet face to define. 
    The gifts, though all her own, which others share,
    Which were but stars her bright sky scatter’d o’er,
    Haply of these to sing e’en I might dare;
    But when to the diviner part I soar,
    To the dull world a brief and brilliant light,
    Courage and wit and art are baffled quite.

    MACGREGOR.

SONNET XLI.

L’ alto e novo miracol ch’ a di nostri.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM TO DESCRIBE HER EXCELLENCES.