XLVIII.

His life was persecution to its close:

He, atheist stamped, whose name the sceptic awed!

Left blind, but patient 'midst a host of foes:

And when he died, refused a common sod

Where he might lay his bones in: he, who trod

From star to star within his realm of heaven,

While his wrapt soul held converse with his God! Outcast from man by bigot-hatred driven,

By his meek suffering soul his great reward was given.

XLIX.

Happier than Angelo, whose dust lies near;

He whom the triad Arts bequeathed their dower:
Well might the Sage sigh, gazing on thy bier,
"Count no man happy till his latest hour!"
Thou wert caressed, revered, upheld by Power,
And if light Fortune frowned, she made thy foes
Succumb to thee like weeds beneath the tower:
Yet wert thou happy? did'st thou find repose?

Oh, who in life's young dawn dares prophesy its close?

L.

Lonely, a wreck in age, thou didst shed tears,

Yea, even with tears thy foes thou didst deplore;
All gone-friends, rivals of thy youthful years:

The very restlessness they caused thee, bore
The elements of thy existence o'er

All opposition, until thou didst win

Fame's deathless wreath, and Time could give no

more;

Then did thy weariness of life begin;

Till thou didst strike Death's gate, praying to let thee in.

LI.

This is the moral of the life of him

Whom, rising o'er the rest, the world assail;

Sung o'er each martyr's grave the requiem :

Yet though Truth points for us her thousandth tale, Yet never did the dull told saw avail;

Wherefore? because life's trials are untried:

Youth's ardour, like its self-love, first must fail,
Which mocks at grey experience for his guide,

Till ends, as aye, the race of vanity or pride.

LII.

Behold that Mausoleum so endeared

To Florence, offering of remorse too late,

Colossal Altar place of marble! reared

O'er dust not there: the Muse laments his fate, Bent o'er his tomb; but, with a mien elate, Fame proudly points where, seated up on high, Sits DANTE throned in more than kingly state! Visions of heaven and hell in his wrapt eye; The glory of the south, the Bard of Italy.

LIII.

The martyr of his fame, hate drove him forth

From Florence, her, for whom his love surpassed
The love of woman! Exiled upon earth,

He found no rest; the arkless wanderer cast

From his loved home: he watched till hope was past, Then his heart broke; no more with fate he strove: But for his requiem pealed Fame's trumpet blast;

His Song revealed hell, paradise above;

Till Florence begged his bones, as he, her slighted love.

LIV.

And there he sits enthroned above his urn,
His thoughtful head upon his hand depressed;
How in that furrowed brow, high, proud, and stern,
And in those sunken cheeks, and lips compressed,
Is the eternal history expressed,

Of mind, which, raised above mankind, drew down
The storms that robbed it from that hour of rest;
The inward strife more wasting of its own,
Life's sacrifices pledged to wear Fame's airy crown.

I

LV.

pause still- -never upon human face

Is the sad record told so well as there!

Grief much, yet care hath ploughed a deeper trace:

Genius, its sinking languor and despair,

While the worn frame its wastings must repair :

What bore thee up? save that thou knew'st from time

Thou wert of immortality the heir;

That thy high thoughts should live in deathless

rhyme :

Thy visions and thy woes-the earthly and sublime.

LVI.

Florence! in thy stern, grey Etruscan streets,
Where the o'ershadowing cornice hides the ray
Of the fierce sun that scarce an entrance meets,
Full many a Legend doth its flight delay,
As loth to leave the faith of Yesterday!

Of those dark middle ages, when men sought,
By other means than holy, to essay

What mysteries beyond the grave are wrought; Behold a record left, with fearful meaning fraught.