| |
| SEE, from this counterfeit of him | |
| Whom Arno shall remember long, | |
| How stern of lineament, how grim, | |
| The father was of Tuscan song! | |
| There but the burning sense of wrong, | 5 |
| Perpetual care, and scorn, abide— | |
| Small friendship for the lordly throng, | |
| Distrust of all the world beside. | |
| |
| Faithful if this wan image be, | |
| No dream his life was—but a fight; | 10 |
| Could any Beatrice see | |
| A lover in that anchorite? | |
| To that cold Ghibeline’s gloomy sight | |
| Who could have guessed the visions came | |
| Of beauty, veiled with heavenly light, | 15 |
| In circles of eternal flame? | |
| |
| The lips as Cumæ’s cavern close, | |
| The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, | |
| The rigid front, almost morose, | |
| But for the patient hope within, | 20 |
| Declare a life whose course hath been | |
| Unsullied still, though still severe, | |
| Which, through the wavering days of sin, | |
| Kept itself icy-chaste and clear. | |
| |
| Not wholly such his haggard look | 25 |
| When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed, | |
| With no companion save his book, | |
| To Corvo’s hushed monastic shade; | |
| Where, as the Benedictine laid | |
| His palm upon the pilgrim guest, | 30 |
| The single boon for which he prayed | |
| The convent’s charity was rest. | |
| |
| Peace dwells not here—this rugged face | |
| Betrays no spirit of repose; | |
| The sullen warrior sole we trace, | 35 |
| The marble man of many woes. | |
| Such was his mien when first arose | |
| The thought of that strange tale divine— | |
| When hell he peopled with his foes, | |
| The scourge of many a guilty line. | 40 |
| |
| War to the last he waged with all | |
| The tyrant canker worms of earth; | |
| Baron and duke, in hold and hall, | |
| Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth; | |
| He used Rome’s harlot for his mirth; | 45 |
| Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime; | |
| But valiant souls of knightly worth | |
| Transmitted to the rolls of time. | |
| |
| O time! whose verdicts mock our own, | |
| The only righteous judge art thou; | 50 |
| That poor, old exile, sad and lone, | |
| Is Latium’s other Virgil now. | |
| Before his name the nations bow; | |
| His words are parcel of mankind, | |
| Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow, | 55 |
| The marks have sunk of Dante’s mind. | |
| |
