Sonnet CXVII

SONNET CXVII.
 
Che fai, alma? che pensi? avrem mai pace?
 
DIALOGUE OF THE POET WITH HIS HEART.
 
 
P.        What actions fire thee, and what musings fill?Soul! is it peace, or truce, or war eterne?
 
H.    Our lot I know not, but, as I discern,Her bright eyes favour not our cherish'd ill.
 
P.    What profit, with those eyes if she at willMakes us in summer freeze, in winter burn?
 
H.    From him, not her those orbs their movement learn.[Pg 147]P.    What's he to us, she sees it and is still.H.    Sometimes, though mute the tongue, the heart lamentsFondly, and, though the face be calm and bright,Bleeds inly, where no eye beholds its grief.P.    Nathless the mind not thus itself contents,Breaking the stagnant woes which there unite,For misery in fine hopes finds no relief.
 
Macgregor. 
 
P.        What act, what dream, absorbs thee, O my soul?Say, must we peace, a truce, or warfare hail?H.    Our fate I know not; but her eyes unveilThe grief our woe doth in her heart enrol.P.    But that is vain, since by her eyes' controlWith nature I no sympathy inhale.H.    Yet guiltless she, for Love doth there prevail.P.    No balm to me, since she will not condole.H.    When man is mute, how oft the spirit grieves,In clamorous woe! how oft the sparkling eyeBelies the inward tear, where none can gaze!P.    Yet restless still, the grief the mind conceivesIs not dispell'd, but stagnant seems to lie.The wretched hope not, though hope aid might raise.
 
Wollaston.

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