Dante and Virgil [poem by Henry Kendall]

[Editor: This poem by Henry Kendall was published in Leaves from Australian Forests (1869).]

IX.

Dante and Virgil.

When lost Francesca sobbed her broken tale
Of Love, and Sin, and boundless Agony;
While that wan Spirit by her side did wail
And bite his lips for utter misery —
The Grief which could not speak, nor hear, nor see;
So tender grew the superhuman face
Of one who listened, that a mighty trace
Of superhuman Woe gave way, and pale,
The sudden light upstruggled to its place;
While all his limbs began to faint and fail
With such excess of Pity! But, behind,
The Roman Virgil stood — the calm, the wise —
With not a shadow in his regal eyes,
A stately type of all his stately kind!

Source:
Henry Kendall, Leaves from Australian Forests, Melbourne: George Robertson, 1869, page 111