The Church divided and the Empire fell,
Grave Dante, but thy verse in magic grows
And charms men upward to the snow-white Rose
Of heaven from the mire and grief of hell.
No lonely isle of dull forgetfulness
Hides Beatrice within its shadowed gloom,
For ’mid the petals of thy Rose’s bloom
Time’s hand has set that pearl of loveliness.
Though patched and powdered poets could not taste
Thy limpid sweetness, and exposed thy fame
To meet the leering Frenchman’s cynic air,
Thy love was fair without brocade or paste,
Thyself too great to need a gilded name;
Thy Comedy and God survive Voltaire.
XXI
TO PETRARCH
Yes, Petrarch, we most certainly believe
That you who wore your heart upon your sleeve,
Did love your love for Laura, and the eye
Of public fame, at which your sonnets fly,
Like skyward larks that court the genial sun;
And o’er the tears you treasured one by one
You downward bent with all a statue’s grace
To see reflections of your tearful face.
But none redeemed by love will e’er consent
To say you tasted of love’s sacrament.
XXII
TO A LADY OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
IN MEMORY OF METASTASIO
Nice, though your lips of coral
Now are dust;
And the schoolboy scans the moral
Graven on your broken bust
In the gilt barocco chapel
After Mass;
Where ten coats with broidered lappel
Bent when Nice used to pass.