Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v2.djvu/36

18 Go to my daughter beautiful, the mother

Of Sicily's honor and of Aragon's,

And the truth tell her, if aught else be told.

After I had my body lacerated

By these two mortal stabs, I gave myself

Weeping to Him, who willingly doth pardon.

Horrible my iniquities had been;

But Infinite Goodness hath such ample arms,

That it receives whatever turns to it.

Had but Cosenza's pastor, who in chase

Of me was sent by Clement at that time,

In God read understandingly this page,

The bones of my dead body still would be

At the bridge-head, near unto Benevento,

Under the safeguard of the heavy cairn.

Now the rain bathes and moveth them the wind,

Beyond the realm, almost beside the Verde,

Where he transported them with tapers quenched.

By malison of theirs is not so lost

Eternal Love, that it cannot return,

So long as hope has anything of green.

True is it, who in contumacy dies

Of Holy Church, though penitent at last,

Must wait upon the outside of this bank