These glimpses of her must have been transient ones, for the poet tells us that his second meeting, face to face, with Beatrice occurred nine years after their first encounter. Her childish charm had now ripened into maidenly loveliness. He beholds her arrayed in purest white, walking between two noble ladies older than herself. "As she passed along the street, she turned her eyes toward the spot where I, thrilled through and through with awe, was standing; and in her ineffable courtesy, which now hath its guerdon in everlasting life, she saluted me in such gracious wise that I seemed in that moment to behold the utmost bounds of bliss."

He now begins to dream of her in his sleeping moments, and to rhyme of her in his waking hours. In his first vision, Love appears with Beatrice in his arms. In one hand he holds Dante's flaming heart, upon which he constrains her to feed; after which, weeping, he gathers up his fair burthen and ascends with her to Heaven. This dream seemed to Dante fit to be communicated to the many famous poets of the time. He embodies it in a sonnet, which opens thus:—

To every captive soul and gentle heart
Into whose sight shall come this song of mine,
That they to me its matter may divine,
Be greeting in Love's name, our master's, sent.

And now begins for him a season of love-lorn pining and heart-sickness. The intensity of the attraction paralyzes in him the power of approaching its object. His friends notice his altered looks, and ask the cause of this great change in him. He confesses that it is the master passion, but so misleads them as to the person beloved, as to bring upon another a scandal by his feigning. For this he is punished by the displeasure of Beatrice, who, passing him in the street, refuses him that salutation the very hope of which, he says, kindled such a flame of charity within him as to make him forget and forgive every offence and injury.

Love now visits him in his sleep, in the guise of a youth arrayed in garments of exceeding whiteness, and desires him to indite certain words in rhyme, which, though not openly addressed to Beatrice, shall yet assure her of what she partly knows,—that the poet's heart has been hers from boyhood. The ballad which he composes in obedience to his love's command is not a very literal rendering of his story.

He now begins to have many conflicting thoughts about Love, two of which constitute a very respectable antinomy. One of these tells him that the empire of Love is good, because it turns the inclinations of its vassal from all that is base. The opposite thought is: "The empire of Love is not good, since the more absolute the allegiance of his vassal, the more severe and woful are the straits through which he must perforce pass."

These conflicting thoughts sought expression in a sonnet, of which I will quote a part:—

Of Love, Love only, speaks my every thought;
And all so various they be that one
Bids me bow down to his dominion,
Another counsels me his power is naught.
One, flushed with hopes, is all with sweetness fraught;
Another makes full oft my tears to run.
. . . . . . . .
Where, then, to turn, what think, I cannot tell.
Fain would I speak, yet know not what to say.

While these uncertainties still possess him, Dante is persuaded by a friend to attend a bridal festivity, where it is hoped that the sight of much beauty may give him great pleasure.

"Why have you brought me among these ladies?" he asks. "In order that they may be properly attended," is the answer.