These walls of generous hospice that outstretch
Their sheltering arms to weary travellers.
If it be true, as we have often heard,
That lukewarm sinners make but lukewarm saints,
Perhaps the converse proof we hold in hand;
For, mark! once lived in Florence, of the proud
Gualberto house, one heir to all its pride,
Giovanni named—he this same sinner-saint.
Quickened by summers of some eighteen years,
And flushed by southern suns to fervid warmth