Venice masks

Friday 13 April 2012

Within my heart I felt the sudden stir - Dante Alighieri

Within my heart I felt the sudden stir
of a loving spirit that lay sleeping:
and saw Love then, coming from afar,
so joyously that I scarcely knew him,

he said: ‘Think only now of honouring me,’
and his every word was uttered smiling.
Then standing with my lord I could see,
as I gazed in the direction of his coming,

my lady Vanna and my Lady Beatrice
approach the place where I was standing,
one following the other marvellously;

and, as even now my mind recalls this,
Love said to me: ‘The first is Spring,
the second Love, she so resembles me’.

Dante Alighieri (c1265 – 1321) Italy

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