University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
Effusions of Love from Chatelar to Mary, Queen of Scotland

Translated from a Gallic Manuscript, in the Scotch College at Paris. Interspersed with songs, sonnets, and notes explanatory, by the translator [i.e. S. W. H. Ireland]. To which is added, historical fragments, poetry, and remains of the amours, of that unfortunate Princess

collapse section
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SONNET.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
expand section


75

SONNET.

Ah! say my soul, is nature law,
Or is the mind but passion's tool?
Yes: all affection's but a flaw,
For heav'nly love is custom's rule:
So saith cold reason: but my raging heart
Cries nay, and fain would act a nobler part.
I wou'd be her's, whom custom's rule
Hath plac'd on eminence so high,
That soaring I should seem the fool,
And yet not soaring I must die.
Doth custom then, or nature play unfair,
To plant the will when not the pow'r is there?
Passion and reason always disagree;
So I am left with love and misery.