Sonnet CCXIX In Quel Bel Viso, Ch’ i’ Sospiro e Bramo
On Laura Putting Her Hand Before Her Eyes While He Was Gazing on Her
On the fair face for which I long and sigh
Mine eyes were fasten’d with desire intense.
When, to my fond thoughts, Love, in best reply,
Her honour’d hand uplifting, shut me thence.
My heart there caught—as fish a fair hook by,
Or as a young bird on a limèd fence—
For good deeds follow from example high,
To truth directed not its busied sense.
But of its one desire my vision reft,
As dreamingly, soon oped itself a way,
Which closed, its bliss imperfect had been left:
My soul between those rival glories lay,
Fill’d with a heavenly and new delight,
Whose strange surpassing sweets engross’d it quite.
Macgregor.