Page:Dante (Oliphant).djvu/46

32

as if in expectation of what I should say. Others there were who talked together, of whom one, turning her eyes on me, and calling me by name, addressed me thus: 'Unto what end lovest thou this lady, seeing her mere presence overwhelms thee? Tell us, for of a surety the end and aim of such a love must be of a new kind.' And when she had thus spoken, not only she, but all the others, fixed their eyes upon me, awaiting my reply. Thereupon I made answer: 'The end and aim of my love hath until now been the salutation of this lady, of whom belike you speak, for in that salutation I found the happiness which was the goal of all my wishes. But since it pleaseth her to deny it to me, Love, my liege lord, in guerdon of my fealty, has placed all my happiness in something which can in no wise fail me.' Thereupon these ladies fell to conversing among themselves; and as we sometimes see rain falling mingled with beautiful snow, so did their words appear to me intermingled with sighs. And when they had talked together for a time, the same lady who had questioned me before, spoke to me in these words: 'Tell us, we pray thee, wherein abides this happiness of thine?' And I made answer, 'In the words which praise my lady.

This would seem to have been a sudden inspiration called forth by the questioning, but the poet goes away from those sympathetic inquisitors with his head full of the new thought. Since there is such happiness in praising her, why has he ever employed otherwise his gift of song? He determined accordingly that this, and this only, should be his future theme—then was struck by fear that the undertaking was too great for him, and so wavered "between desire to speak and fear to begin." At last, one day, when walking by a clear-flowing stream, the needful inspiration came. Poets understand each other. So Burns says, little thinking of the Italian youth, long mouldered into dust—