HE NO LONGER CONTEMPLATES THE MORTAL, BUT THE IMMORTAL BEAUTIES OF LAURA
O Time! O heavens! whose flying changes frame
Errors and snares for mortals poor and blind;
O days more swift than arrows or the wind,
Experienced now, I know your treacherous aim.
You I excuse, myself alone I blame,
For Nature for your flight who wings design'd
To me gave eyes which still I have inclined
To mine own ill, whence follow grief and shame.
An hour will come, haply e'en now is pa**'d,
Their sight to turn on my diviner part
And so this infinite anguish end at last.
Rejects not your long yoke, O Love, my heart,
But its own ill by study, sufferings vast:
Virtue is not of chance, but painful art.
Macgregor.
O Time! O circling heavens! in your flight
Us mortals ye deceive—so poor and blind;
O days! more fleeting than the shaft or wind,
Experience brings your treachery to my sight!
But mine the error—ye yourselves are right;
Your flight fulfils but that your wings design'd:
My eyes were Nature's gift, yet ne'er could find
But one blest light—and hence their present blight.
It now is time (perchance the hour is pa**'d)
That they a safer dwelling should select,
And thus repose might soothe my grief acute:
Love's yoke the spirit may not from it cast,
(With oh what pain!) it may its ill eject;
But virtue is attain'd but by pursuit!
Wollaston.