Sonnet LI
[Pg 274]
SONNET LI.
I dì miei più leggier che nessun cervo.
HIS PASSION FINDS ITS ONLY CONSOLATION IN CONTEMPLATING HER IN HEAVEN.
My days more swiftly than the forest hindHave fled like shadows, and no pleasure seenSave for a moment, and few hours serene,Whose bitter-sweet I treasure in true mind.O wretched world, unstable, wayward! BlindWhose hopes in thee alone have centred been;In thee my heart was captived by her mienWho bore it with her when she earth rejoin'd:Her better spirit, now a deathless flower,And in the highest heaven that still shall be,Each day inflames me with its beauties more.Alone, though frailer, fonder every hour,I muse on her—Now what, and where is she,And what the lovely veil which here she wore?
Macgregor. Oh! swifter than the hart my life hath fled,A shadow'd dream; one winged glance hath seenIts only good; its hours (how few serene!)The sweet and bitter tide of thought have fed:Ephemeral world! in pride and sorrow bred,Who hope in thee, are blind as I have been;I hoped in thee, and thus my heart's loved queenHath borne it mid her nerveless, kindred dead.Her form decay'd—its beauty still survives,For in high heaven that soul will ever bloom,With which each day I more enamour'd grow:Thus though my locks are blanch'd, my hope revivesIn thinking on her home—her soul's high doom:Alas! how changed the shrine she left below!