• He said, from life and death gone home.
• Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come!

• But oh! what human tongue can speak
• That day when Michael came* to break
• From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
• Its covenant with Gabriel
• 90 Endured at length unto the end?
• What human thought can apprehend
• That mystery of motherhood
• When thy Beloved at length renew'd
• The sweet communion severèd,—
• His left hand underneath thine head
• And His right hand embracing thee?—
• Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

• Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
• That lets me see her standing up
• 100 Where the light of the Throne is bright?
• Unto the left, unto the right,
• The cherubim, succinct, conjoint,
• Float inward to a golden point,
  Transcribed Footnote (page 49):

  * A Church legend of the Blessed Virgin's death.

  page: 50  
• And from between the seraphim
• The glory issues for a hymn.
• O Mary Mother, be not loth
• To listen,—thou whom the stars clothe,
• Who seëst and mayst not be seen!
• Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
• 110 Into our shadow bend thy face,
• Bowing thee from the secret place,
• O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

   

• OF Florence and of Beatrice
• Servant and singer from of old,
• O'er Dante's heart in youth had toll'd
• The knell that gave his Lady peace;
• And now in manhood flew the dart
• Wherewith his City pierced his heart.

• Yet if his Lady's home above
• Was Heaven, on earth she filled his soul;
• And if his City held control
• 10 To cast the body forth to rove,
• The soul could soar from earth's vain throng,
• And Heaven and Hell fulfil the song.

• Follow his feet's appointed way;—
• But little light we find that clears
• The darkness of the exiled years.
• Follow his spirit's journey:—nay,
• What fires are blent, what winds are blown
• On paths his feet may tread alone?

• Yet of the twofold life he led
• 20 In chainless thought and fettered will
• Some glimpses reach us,—somewhat still
• Of the steep stairs and bitter bread,—
• Of the soul's quest whose stern avow
• For years had made him haggard now.

• Alas! the Sacred Song whereto
• Both heaven and earth had set their hand
• Not only at Fame's gate did stand
• Knocking to claim the passage through,
• But toiled to ope that heavier door
• 30 Which Florence shut for evermore.

• Shall not his birth's baptismal Town
• One last high presage yet fulfil,
• And at that font in Florence still
  page: 53  
• His forehead take the laurel-crown?
• O God! or shall dead souls deny
• The undying soul its prophecy?

• Aye, 'tis their hour. Not yet forgot
• The bitter words he spoke that day
• When for some great charge far away
• 40 Her rulers his acceptance sought.
• ‘And if I go, who stays?’—so rose
• His scorn:—‘and if I stay, who goes?’

• ‘Lo! thou art gone now, and we stay:’
• (The curled lips mutter): ‘and no star
• Is from thy mortal path so far
• As streets where childhood knew the way.
• To Heaven and Hell thy feet may win,
• But thine own house they come not in.’

• Therefore, the loftier rose the song
• 50 To touch the secret things of God,
• The deeper pierced the hate that trod
• On base men's track who wrought the wrong;
• Till the soul's effluence came to be
• Its own exceeding agony.

• Arriving only to depart,
• From court to court, from land to land,
• Like flame within the naked hand
• His body bore his burning heart
• That still on Florence strove to bring
• 60 God's fire for a burnt offering.

• Even such was Dante's mood, when now,
• Mocked for long years with Fortune's sport,
• He dwelt at yet another court,
• There where Verona's knee did bow
• And her voice hailed with all acclaim
• Can Grande della Scala's name.

• As that lord's kingly guest awhile
• His life we follow; through the days
• Which walked in exile's barren ways,—
• 70 The nights which still beneath one smile
• Heard through all spheres one song increase,—
• ‘Even I, even I am Beatrice.’

• At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
• Due reverence did his steps attend;
• The ushers on his path would bend
  page: 55  
• At ingoing as at going out;
• The penmen waited on his call
• At council-board, the grooms in hall.

• And pages hushed their laughter down,
• 80 And gay squires stilled the merry stir,
• When he passed up the dais-chamber
• With set brows lordlier than a frown;
• And tire-maids hidden among these
• Drew close their loosened bodices.

• Perhaps the priests, (exact to span
• All God's circumference,) if at whiles
• They found him wandering in their aisles,
• Grudged ghostly greeting to the man
• By whom, though not of ghostly guild,
• 90 With Heaven and Hell men's hearts were fill'd.

• And the court-poets (he, forsooth,
• A whole world's poet strayed to court!)
• Had for his scorn their hate's retort.
• He'd meet them flushed with easy youth,
• Hot on their errands. Like noon-flies
• They vexed him in the ears and eyes.

• But at this court, peace still must wrench
• Her chaplet from the teeth of war:
• By day they held high watch afar,
• 100 At night they cried across the trench;
• And still, in Dante's path, the fierce
• Gaunt soldiers wrangled o'er their spears.

• But vain seemed all the strength to him,
• As golden convoys sunk at sea
• Whose wealth might root out penury:
• Because it was not, limb with limb,
• Knit like his heart strings round the wall
• Of Florence, that ill pride might fall.

• Yet in the tiltyard, when the dust
• 110 Cleared from the sundered press of knights
• Ere yet again it swoops and smites,
• He almost deemed his longing must
• Find force to yield that multitude
• And hurl that strength the way he would.

• How should he move them,—fame and gain
• On all hands calling them at strife?
• He still might find but his one life
  page: 57  
• To give, by Florence counted vain;
• One heart the false hearts made her doubt,
• 120 One voice she heard once and cast out.

• Oh! if his Florence could but come,
• A lily-sceptred damsel fair,
• As her own Giotto painted her
• On many shields and gates at home,—
• A lady crowned, at a soft pace
• Riding the lists round to the dais:

• Till where Can Grande rules the lists,
• As young as Truth, as calm as Force,
• She draws her rein now, while her horse
• 130 Bows at the turn of the white wrists;
• And when each knight within his stall
• Gives ear, she speaks and tells them all:

• All the foul tale,—truth sworn untrue
• And falsehood's triumph. All the tale?
• Great God! and must she not prevail
• To fire them ere they heard it through,—
• And hand achieve ere heart could rest
• That high adventure of her quest?

• How would his Florence lead them forth,
• 140 Her bridle ringing as she went;
• And at the last within her tent,
• 'Neath golden lilies worship-worth,
• How queenly would she bend the while
• And thank the victors with her smile!

• Also her lips should turn his way
• And murmur: ‘O thou tried and true,
• With whom I wept the long years through!
• What shall it profit if I say,
• Thee I remember? Nay, through thee
• 150 All ages shall remember me.’

• Peace, Dante, peace! The task is long,
• The time wears short to compass it.
• Within thine heart such hopes may flit
• And find a voice in deathless song:
• But lo! as children of man's earth,
• Those hopes are dead before their birth.

• Fame tells us that Verona's court
• Was a fair place. The feet might still
• Wander for ever at their will
page: 59  
• 160 In many ways of sweet resort;
• And still in many a heart around
• The Poet's name due honour found.

• Watch we his steps. He comes upon
• The women at their palm-playing.
• The conduits round the gardens sing
• And meet in scoops of milk-white stone,
• Where wearied damsels rest and hold
• Their hands in the wet spurt of gold.

• One of whom, knowing well that he,
• 170 By some found stern, was mild with them,
• Would run and pluck his garment's hem,
• Saying, ‘Messer Dante, pardon me,’—
• Praying that they might hear the song
• Which first of all he made, when young.

• ‘Donne che avete’* . . . Thereunto
• Thus would he murmur, having first
• Drawn near the fountain, while she nurs'd
  Transcribed Footnote (page 59):

  * ‘Donne che avete intelletto d'amore:’—the first canzone of the
  
  ‘Vita Nuova.’

page: 60  
• His hand against her side: a few
• Sweet words, and scarcely those, half said:
• 180 Then turned, and changed, and bowed his head.

• For then the voice said in his heart,
• ‘Even I, even I am Beatrice;’
• And his whole life would yearn to cease:
• Till having reached his room, apart
• Beyond vast lengths of palace-floor,
• He drew the arras round his door.

• At such times, Dante, thou hast set
• Thy forehead to the painted pane
• Full oft, I know; and if the rain
• 190 Smote it outside, her fingers met
• Thy brow; and if the sun fell there,
• Her breath was on thy face and hair.

• Then, weeping, I think certainly
• Thou hast beheld, past sight of eyne,—
• Within another room of thine
• Where now thy body may not be
• But where in thought thou still remain'st,—
• A window often wept against:

• The window thou, a youth, hast sought,
• 200 Flushed in the limpid eventime,
• Ending with daylight the day's rhyme
• Of her; where oftenwhiles her thought
• Held thee—the lamp untrimmed to write—
• In joy through the blue lapse of night.

• At Can La Scala's court, no doubt,
• Guests seldom wept. It was brave sport,
• No doubt, at Can La Scala's court,
• Within the palace and without;
• Where music, set to madrigals,
• 210 Loitered all day through groves and halls.

• Because Can Grande of his life
• Had not had six-and-twenty years
• As yet. And when the chroniclers
• Tell you of that Vicenza strife
• And of strifes elsewhere,—you must not
• Conceive for church-sooth he had got

• Just nothing in his wits but war:
• Though doubtless 'twas the young man's joy
• (Grown with his growth from a mere boy,)
  page: 62  
• 220To mark his ‘Viva Cane!’ scare
• The foe's shut front, till it would reel
• All blind with shaken points of steel.

• But there were places—held too sweet
• For eyes that had not the due veil
• Of lashes and clear lids—as well
• In favour as his saddle-seat:
• Breath of low speech he scorned not there
• Nor light cool fingers in his hair.

• Yet if the child whom the sire's plan
• 230 Made free of a deep treasure-chest
• Scoffed it with ill-conditioned jest,—
• We may be sure too that the man
• Was not mere thews, nor all content
• With lewdness swathed in sentiment.

• So you may read and marvel not
• That such a man as Dante—one
• Who, while Can Grande's deeds were done,
• Had drawn his robe round him and thought—
  page: 63  
• Now at the same guest-table far'd
• 240 Where keen Uguccio wiped his beard.*

• Through leaves and trellis-work the sun
• Left the wine cool within the glass,—
• They feasting where no sun could pass:
• And when the women, all as one,
• Rose up with brightened cheeks to go,
• It was a comely thing, we know.

• But Dante recked not of the wine;
• Whether the women stayed or went,
• His visage held one stern intent:
• 250 And when the music had its sign
• To breathe upon them for more ease,
• Sometimes he turned and bade it cease.

• And as he spared not to rebuke
• The mirth, so oft in council he
• To bitter truth bore testimony:
• And when the crafty balance shook
• Well poised to make the wrong prevail,
• Then Dante's hand would turn the scale.

• And if some envoy from afar
• 260 Sailed to Verona's sovereign port
• For aid or peace, and all the court
• Fawned on its lord, ‘the Mars of war,
• Sole arbiter of life and death,’—
• Be sure that Dante saved his breath.

• And Can La Scala marked askance
• These things, accepting them for shame
• And scorn, till Dante's guestship came
• To be a peevish sufferance:
• His host sought ways to make his days
• 270 Hateful; and such have many ways.

• There was a Jester, a foul lout
• Whom the court loved for graceless arts;
• Sworn scholiast of the bestial parts
• Of speech; a ribald mouth to shout
• In Folly's horny tympanum
• Such things as make the wise man dumb.

• Much loved, him Dante loathed. And so,
• One day when Dante felt perplex'd
• If any day that could come next