 | Anyta and other poems |  |
164
TO DANTE.
Monarch august, thy solitary throneDidst thou with solitary wisdom earn,
Midst want and gloom and exile, stout and stern
To master thy great self, and all alone,—
Away from Tuscan hearth and children blown
By Guelfian tempests,—with strange power to turn
Thy soul's hot tumults into flames that burn
A world-effulgency, while for thy own
Dear land thy mighty rhyme hath been a breath
Breathing from Beatrice's heaven through thee,
A breath of holier life heaving beneath
The life of universal Italy,
Where, sung thy song, thou passedst lone through death,
Ended thy long sublime soliloquy.
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