"Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama."
Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame
Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy?
Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy
Whom all the world doth as my lady name!
How honor grows, and pure devotion's flame,
How truth is joined with graceful dignity,
There thou mayst learn, and what the path may be
To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;
There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill,
And softer silence, and those holy ways
Unutterable, untold by human heart.
But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,
This none can copy! since its lovely rays
Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art.
The following, on the other hand, seems to me one of the Shakespearian
sonnets; the successive phrases set sail, one by one, like a yacht
squadron; each spreads its graceful wings and glides away. It is hard
to handle this white canvas without soiling. Macgregor, in the only
version of this sonnet which I have seen, abandons all attempt at
rhyme; but to follow the strict order of the original in this respect
is a part of the pleasant problem which one cannot bear to forego. And
there seems a kind of deity who presides over this union of languages,
and who sometimes silently lays the words in order, after all one's own
poor attempts have failed.