l,
Where sparkles my sweet fire, where brightly grew
That stately laurel from a sucker small,
Increasing, as I speak, hide from my view
The beauteous landscape and the blessed scene,
Where dwells my true heart with its only queen.

MACGREGOR.

SONNET CLVI.

_Passa la nave mia colma d' oblio._

UNDER THE FIGURE OF A TEMPEST-TOSSED VESSEL, HE DESCRIBES HIS OWN SAD
STATE.

My bark, deep laden with oblivion, rides
O'er boisterous waves, through winter's midnight gloom,
'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis, while, in room
Of pilot, Love, mine enemy, presides;
At every oar a guilty fancy bides,
Holding at nought the tempest and the tomb;
A moist eternal wind the sails consume,
Of sighs, of hopes, and of desire besides.
A shower of tears, a fog of chill disdain
Bathes and relaxes the o'er-wearied cords,
With error and with ignorance entwined;
My two loved lights their wonted aid restrain;
Reason or Art, storm-quell'd, no help affords,
Nor hope remains the wish'd-for port to find.

CHARLEMONT.

My lethe-freighted bark with reckless prore
Cleaves the rough sea 'neath wintry midnight skies,
My old foe at the helm our compass eyes,
With Scylla and Charybdis on each shore,
A prompt and daring thought at every oar,
Which equally the storm and death defies,
While a perpetual humid wind of sighs,
Of hopes, and of desires, its light sail tore.
Bathe and relax its worn and weary shrouds
(Which ignorance with error intertwines),
Torrents of tears, of scorn and anger clouds;
Hidden the twin dear lights which were my signs;
Reason and Art amid the waves lie dead,
And hope of gaining port is almost fled.

MACGREGOR.

SONNET CLVII.

_Una candida cerva sopra l' erba._

THE VISION OF THE FAWN.

Beneath a laurel, two fair streams between,
At early sunrise of the opening year,
A milk-white fawn upon the meadow green,
Of gold its either horn, I saw appear;
So mild, yet so majestic, was its mien,
I left, to follow, all my labours here,
As miners after treasure, in the keen
Desire of new, forget the old to fear.
"Let none impede"--so, round its fair neck, run
The words in diamond and topaz writ--
"My lord to give me liberty sees fit."
And now the sun his noontide height had won
When I, with weary though unsated