Read the poem: “On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto”

by James Russell Lowell

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
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On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto

Can this be thou who, lean and pale,
  With such immitigable eye
Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale,
  And note each vengeance, and pass by
Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance
Cast backward one forbidden glance,
  And saw Francesca, with child’s glee,
  Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee
And with proud hands control its fiery prance?

With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow,
  And eye remote, that inly sees
Fair Beatrice’s spirit wandering now
  In some sea-lulled Hesperides,
Thou movest through the jarring street,
Secluded from the noise of feet
  By her gift-blossom in thy hand,
  Thy branch of palm from Holy Land;—
No trace is here of ruin’s fiery sleet.

Yet there is something round thy lips
  That prophesies the coming doom,
The soft, gray herald-shadow ere the eclipse
  Notches the perfect disk with gloom;
A something that would banish thee,
And thine untamed pursuer be,
  From men and their unworthy fates,
  Though Florence had not shut her gates,
And Grief had loosed her clutch and let thee free.

Ah! he who follows fearlessly
  The beckonings of a poet-heart
Shall wander, and without the world’s decree,
  A banished man in field and mart;
Harder than Florence’ walls the bar
Which with deaf sternness holds him far
  From home and friends, till death’s release,
  And makes his only prayer for peace,
Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong war!

< < < On a Bust of General Grant
On an Autumn Sketch of H.G. Wild > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

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by James Russell Lowell

On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto

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