 | The Poetry of Real Life |  |
ON DANTE.
[_]
The Cardinal du Pujet, the Pope's Legate in Lombardy, wished to disinter and burn Dante's body, and scatter his ashes to the winds, but was prevented by some influential citizens.
Where seated Grief sits mocking Sympathy,
The smileless lip, the glazed, long-tearless eye,
Which for its own ills never wept, I trace,
Graved as in marble, not the commonplace,
And hourly sorrows of humanity,
But those which all the founts of tears updry,
And turn the forc'd smile to a sad grimace—
And were not these enough? did then thy foes
Seek other triumphs? yes! they would thy soul
In heav'n, thine ashes in the grave, controul!—
But from their depths, solemn and stern, there rose
A voice, an echo of the mighty Whole,
Forbidding Man 'twixt Man and God to interpose!
| The Poetry of Real Life | |