Like some bronze statue rust the more restores,
Dante! thou standest in the junk of old:
Armor and crosiers, catapults and oars,
That make thee Pluto in a hell of mold.
All that hell was thy bony features hold,
Death and imagination, monkish stern!
A savage Christ, thou Virgil's hand did fold,
Mild pagan company in hell's sojourn, —
Poet who might'st in thy dark age have told
The light of Friar Bacon, Bannockburn!
Letters melodious in a barbarous tongue
Thy banished genius turned thy age upon,
And feudal night with acclamations rung
As when in Florence wheeled her gonfalon.