HE FEARS THAT AN ILLNESS WHICH HAS ATTACKED THE EYES OF LAURA MAY DEPRIVE HIM OF THEIR SIGHT I lived so tranquil, with my lot content, No sorrow visited, nor envy pined, To other loves if fortune were more kind One pang of mine their thousand joys outwent; But those bright eyes, whence never I repent The pains I feel, nor wish them less to find, So dark a cloud and heavy now does blind,
Seems as my sun of life in them were spent. O Nature! mother pitiful yet stern, Whence is the power which prompts thy wayward deeds, Such lovely things to make and mar in turn? True, from one living fount all power proceeds: But how couldst Thou consent, great God of Heaven, That aught should rob the world of what thy love had given? Macgregor.