Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/286

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248
THE PROPHECY OP DANTE.
[CANTO I.

Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod
From star to star to reach the almighty throne.[1]
Oh Beatricē! whose sweet limbs the sod
So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone,
Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love,20
Love so ineffable, and so alone,
That nought on earth could more my bosom move,
And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet
That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove,
Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet
Relieved her wing till found; without thy light
My Paradise had still been incomplete.[2]
Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight
Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought,
Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[3] and bright30
Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought
With the World's war, and years, and banishment,

And tears for thee, by other woes untaught;
  1. Star over star——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
  2. "Ché sol per le belle' opre
    Che sono in cielo, il sole e l'altre stelle,
    Dentro da lor si crede il Paradiso:
    Cosi se guardi fiso
    Pensar ben dei, che ogni terren piacere.
    [Si trova in lei, ma tu nol puoi vedere."]

    Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third.

    [Byron was mistaken in attribating these lines, which form part of a Canzone beginning "Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli," to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence supports such an ascription. The Canzone is attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was not assigned to Dante before 1518 (Canzoni di Dante, etc. [Colophon], Impresso in Milano per Augustino da Vimercato.... mcccccxviii...). See. too, Il Canzoniere di Dante ... Fraticelli, Firenze, 1873, p. 240. From information kindly supplied by the Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed.]

  3. ["Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious Lady of my mind was made manifest to mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore."—La Vita Nuova, § 2 (Translation by D. G. Rossetti, Dante and his Circle, 1892. p. 30).

    "In reference to the meaning of the name, 'she who confers blessing,' we learn from Boccaccio that this first meeting took place at a May Feast, given in the year 1274, by Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice ... to which feast Dante accompanied his father, Alighiero Alighieri."—Note by D. G. Rossetti. ibid., p. 30.]