Petrarch - O tempo, o ciel volubil che fuggendo lyrics

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.