The Secret Splendour

("She who was the destroyer of all evil and the queen of all good, coming where 1 was, denied me her most sweet salutation, in which alone was my blessedness."—Dante's Vila Nuova)

O Beatrice, one word's saluting grace

 Breathed from your mystery-haunted flower-sweet

Visage would have becalmed the passion-heat

Vexing my vague mind's melancholy space.

But dreams eternal beckoned to your gaze

Down the grey curve of this Florentine street!

Smileless you went; and I must turn my feet

To seek your love beyond all earthly days....

Following the track of your lost smile I pass

Now and for ever to the inmost deep

Where each dark hour shall be a mirroring glass

Of solitary giant-hearted sleep—

Resolved to wake not till your mien caress

My trancehood, like a Sun of deathlessness!

Page 33