 | The white sail and other poems |  |
148
[IV. Ye pilgrims, who with pensive aspect go]
‘Deh, peregrini, che pensosi andate.’
Ye pilgrims, who with pensive aspect go
Thinking, perhaps, of bygone things and dear,
Come you from lands so very far from here
As unto us who watch your port would show?
For that you weep not outright, filing slow
Thro' the mid-highway of this city drear,
You even as gentle stranger-folk appear,
Who of the common sorrow nothing know!
Would you but linger, would you but be told,
Pledge with its thousand sighs my soul doth give
That you, likewise, should travel on heart-broken:
Ah, we have lost our Beatrice! Behold,
What least soever word be of her spoken,
The tears must follow now from all that live.
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