"Ay me, sharp Death! till what I ask is done
And my whole life is ended utterly,—
Answer,—must I weep on
Even thus, and never cease to moan ay me?"[1]
He might well ask. It should be accorded him that he was worthy of the occasion: the poem is very fine. But I think the good man did well enough after this; I know that if he was sad he was most melodiously sad. He throve; he became a professor; his wife bore him five children. His native city has done him what honour she could, ousted his surname in favour of her own, set up a pompous monument in the Cathedral Church (where little Selvaggia heard her dull mass), and dubbed him once and for all, L'amoroso Messer Cino da Pistoja. That should suffice him. As for the young Selvaggia, I suppose her bones are dust of the Apennine.
- ↑ The translation is Rossetti's.
