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ife's profusion and passionate brevity How hearts enamored of life can strain too much In one long tension to hear, to see, to touch. Now on each rustling night-wind from the South Far music calls; beyond the harbor mouth Each outbound argosy with sail unfurled May point the path through this fortuitous world That holds the heart from its desire. Away! Where tinted coast-towns gleam at close of day, Where squares are sweet with bells, or shores thick set With bloom and bower, with mosque and minaret. Blue peaks loom up beyond the coast-plains here, White roads wind up the dales and disappear, By silvery waters in the plains afar Glimmers the inland city like a star, With gilded gates and sunny spires ablaze And burnished domes half-seen through luminous haze, Lo, with what opportunity Earth teems! How like a fair its ample beauty seems! Fluttering with flags its proud pavilions rise: What bright bazaars, what marvelous merchandise, Down seething alleys what melodious din, What clamor importuning from every booth! At Earth's great market where Joy is trafficked in Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth! Translations Dante. Inferno, Canto XXVI Florence, rejoice! For thou o'er land and sea So spread'st thy pinions that the fame of thee Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell. So noble were the five I found to dwell Therein--thy sons--whence shame accrues to me And no great praise is thine; but if it be That truth unveil in dreamings before dawn, Then is the vengeful hour not far withdrawn When Prato shall exult within her walls To see thy suffering. Whate'er befalls, Let it come soon, since come it must, for later, Each year would see my grief for thee the greater. We left; and once more up the craggy side By the blind steps of our descent, my guide, Remounting, drew me on. So we pursued The rugged path through that steep solitude, Where rocks and splintered fragments strewed the land So thick, that foot availed not without hand. Grief filled me then, and still great sorrow stirs My heart as oft as memory recurs To what I saw; that more and more I rein My natural powers, and curb them lest they strain Where Virtue guide not,--that if some good star, Or better thing, have made them what they are, That good I may not grudge, nor turn to ill. As when, reclining on some verdant hill -- What season the hot sun least veils his power That lightens all, and in that g
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