"Song! I am here, my heart the while more cold With fear than frozen snow, Feels in its certain core death's coming blow; For thus, in weak self-communing, has roll'd Of my vain life the better portion by: Worse burden surely ne'er Tried mortal man than that which now I bear; Though death be seated nigh, For future life still seeking councils new, I know and love the good, yet, ah! the worse pursue." Macgregor. The finest of Petrarch's sonnets are those written after the death of Laura. With this dread event he loses all joy in life; thought of her beauty returns softened by memory and the lapse of time: "Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led My raptured heart at will, now here, now there? Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere, Which o'er my darkling path their radiance shed? Where is true worth, and wit, and wisdom fled? The courteous phrase, the melting accent, where? Where, grouped in one rich form, the beauties rare, Which long their magic influence o'er me shed? Where is the shade, within whose sweet recess My wearied spirit still forgot its sighs, And all my thoughts their constant record found? Where, where is she, my life's sole arbitress?-- Ah, wretched world! and wretched ye, mine eyes (Of her pure light bereft) which aye with tears are drowned." Wrangham. Yet, in his affliction there is a certain comfort, for now that she is dead she seems no longer cold to him, and he often sees and converses with her in heaven: "Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays She, whom I seek but find on earth no more: There, fairer still and humbler than before, I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd maze. She took me by the hand, and 'Thou shalt trace, If hope not errs,' she said, 'this happy shore; I, I am she, thy breast with slights who tore, And ere its evening closed my day's brief space. What human heart conceives, my joys exceed: Thee only I expect, and (what remain Below) the charms, once objects of thy love,' Why ceased she? Ah! my captive hand why freed? Such of her soft and hallowed tones the chain, From that delightful heaven my soul could scarcely move." Wrangham. But, when spring returns, it brings a renewal of his grief: