Would catch me up and toss me overhead,
And swear I was best Bardi of them all;
And if his sons but matched his only maid
They’d make quick work of the black Ghibellines
And of the Buondelmonti!
So I grew
To woman’s stature, and men called me fair,
And suitors, like a flight of bees, began
To hum and cluster wheresoe’er I moved;
And then there came the day,—that fateful day,