 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
106
DANTE.
Thou hast borne many great and noble sons,Florence the fair! that beauteous as a dream
Sittest enthroned on Arno's silver stream,
Where coyly through the laughing vale it runs,
And, oh not last, among those gifted ones,
Memory thine own undying Dante views:
Him, yet a child, strong Love, that earliest winds
Fetters of rose around the purest minds,
Claim'd for his own, and like a monarch gave
To staid Melpomene, his laurell'd muse,
The happy captive for a favourite slave:
A slave? A mighty master,—from whose lyre
The pangs of hell, the terrors of the grave,
The joys of paradise, rush forth in fire!
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |