DANTE.
Dante, old Ghibelin! when I see only in passing
The plaster white and dull of this mask so puissant
That Art has bequeathed us of thy features majestic,
I cannot help feeling a slight shudder, O poet!
So strongly the hand of genius and that of misfortune
Have imprinted upon them the dark seal of sorrow.
Under the narrow cap that on thine ears closely presses,
Is it Time's mark, or the furrow of thought and of vigils
That traverses thy forehead with laborious indenture?
Was it in fields of exile in thy dark degradation
That thy mouth closed thus tightly, as after deep curses?
Thy last thought, is it in this smile sinister apparent—
The smile that Death on thy lips has nailed with his fingers?
Ah! Disdain suits well the mouth of a man such as Dante,
For the daylight dawned on him in a city most ardent,
And his natal pavement was made of flint and of gravel
That tore a long time the soles of his feet ever restless.
Dante saw like us, daily, human passions in conflict
Roll around him with fortunes strange, sudden, and diverse;
He saw the citizens cut each other's throats in madness;
The parties crushed, spring up again one after another;
