Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/194

The lava of his spirit when it burned—
It is not cold to-day. O passionate
Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine,
Didst sit austere at banquets of the great,
And muse upon this far-off stone of thine,
And think how oft the passers used to wait
A moment, in the golden day's decline,
With "good night, dearest Dante!"—Well, good night!
I muse now, Dante, and think, verily,
Though chapelled in Ravenna's byeway, might
Thy buried bones be thrilled to ecstasy,
Could'st know thy favourite stone's elected right
As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee
Their earliest chartas from! good night, good morn,
Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure
That thine is better comforted of scorn,
And looks down from the stars in fuller cure,
Than when, in Santa Croce church, forlorn
Of any corpse, the architect and hewer
Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb!^[1]
For now thou art no longer exiled, now
Best honoured!-we salute thee who art come
Back to the old stone with a softer brow
Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some
Good lovers of our age to track and plough
Their way to, through Time's ordures stratified,^[2]
And startle broad awake into the dull
Bargello chamber. Now, thou'rt milder eyed,

1. The Florentines, to whom the Ravennese denied the body of Dante which was asked of them in a "late remorse of love," have given a cenotaph to their divine poet in this church. Something less than a grave!
2. In allusion to Mr. Kirkup's well-known discovery of Giotto's fresco-portrait of Dante.