he fountains of old inspiration fail,
And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV

In thought I raised me to the place where she
Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;
There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,
More fair I found her and less proud to me.
She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be
With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;
Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,
Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:
My bliss no mortal heart can understand;
Thee only do I lack, and that which thou
So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.
Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?
For at the sound of that celestial tale
I all but stayed in paradise till now.

* * * * *

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV

The flower of angels and the spirits blest,
Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she
Who is my lady died, around her pressed
Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.
What light is this? What beauty manifest?
Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy
Of splendour in this age to our high rest
Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.
She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,
Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;
At times the while she backward turns her face
To see me follow--seems to wait and plead:
Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,
Because I hear her praying me to speed.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about
the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna
were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.]

[Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great
general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether
Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his
_Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after
her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of
doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with
Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had
been some time his mistress before she became his wife.]

[Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of
Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of
Learning,' _Renaissance in Ita