ON A BUST OF DANTE. BY T. W. PARSONS.
Reading edition
Thomas William Parsons was born at Boston in 1818. He spent the greater part of his life in Europe. In 1867 he translated Dante’s “Inferno.” In 1854 he published, under the title “Ghetto di Roma,” a collection of his poems. He died at Scituate, Mass., in 1892.
See, from his counterfeit of him Whom Arno shall remember long, How stern of lineament, how grim, The father was of Tuscan song! There but the burning sense of wrong, Perpetual care and scorn abide; Small friendship for the lordly throng; Distrust of all the world beside.
Faithful if this wan image be, No dream his life was, but a fight; Could any Beatrice see A lover in that anchorite? To that cold Ghibeline’s gloomy sight Who could have guessed the visions came Of beauty, veiled with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame?
The lips as Cumæ’s cavern close, The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe; Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.
Peace dwells not here—this rugged face Betrays no spirit of repose; The sullen warrior sole we trace, The marble man of many woes. Such was his mien when first arose The thought of that strange tale divine, When hell he peopled with his foes, The scourge of many a guilty line.