Words for the Hour/Dante

by Julia Ward Howe

DANTE.

He wore an honest hatred on his sleeve,Of red oppression and inhuman wrong;Brief pause he made to question or to grieve,But, singing his incomparable song,Wove each great stanza of his life along.

His hands were pure from gold, his heart from guile,—Could the fixed features deign to wear a smile,It must have been the gala of some deedWhose doer's guerdon rested in that meedMost, tho' approving angels wept the while.

In his immortal heart such virtue liesOf Love, that builds the shrine it consecrates,That who pursues the passion to the gatesWhose music shuts out the uncertain Fates,Beholds it, deathless, in his Lady's eyes.

Dante was lovelorn in his youthful days,With amorous wanderers fain to pass his time;Nor only thus knew he those devious waysSet in the glory of his antique rhyme,—So much at least, his Legendary says,

Seeking excuse. But this is further said:He was no Wanton—Eager Beauty laidHer ambush for him, from the laurel groveShe darted, with his solemn traits in love,And in his breast her glorious capture made.

Or swifter, Sorrow, with her eyes on fire,Their red glow ravished from her hollow breast,Laid her thin grasp upon the Poet's vest,Till, at her tale of agony confessed,Fainted the heart, and fell the wailing lyre.

Rest, mid sepulchral marbles, dim and cold,Setting the lamp that saw thee over-wroughtWith thine unearthly subject—labour fraughtWith distant blessing, since our ages holdTheir mirror to the greatness of thy thought.