Part 2 — THE FORTIETH SONNET OF PETRARCA.

If honest love e’er merited reward,

If worship win the meed of yore it won,

I should be blest, since purer than the sun

The love my sighs and poesy record;

Yet ’tis not so: unwillingly are heard

My vows, and all regardlessly are flung

Her eyes o’er burning lines wherein is sung

Her matchless beauty, and my grief is bared.

But yet I hope that some day she may deign

To hearken to the tribute I have brought

And smile at least return for all my tears.

Still it may be I’ll languish here in vain

Until that dread catastrophe is wrought,

When time shall harvest all its sheaf of years.

CROSS PURPOSES.