" But
this misunderstanding is not his only torment. Almost from his second
meeting he fears that his beloved will soon die. His prophetic vision
becomes an agonising reality when in 1290 in her twenty-fourth year, the
eyes that radiated bliss are closed in death.
So stunned was he by the blow that his life was despaired of. When he
recovered it seemed to him that Florence had lost her gaiety and
desolate is mourning the loss of his beloved one. Pilgrims passing on
their way to Galicia do not appear to share the general grief. To arouse
their sympathy in the loss which the city has sustained the heart-broken
poet lover devises a sonnet "in which I set forth that which I had said
to myself.
Pilgrims:
If through your will to hear, awhile ye stay,
Truly my heart with sighs declare to me
That ye shall afterwards depart in tears.
Alas her Beatrice now lost hath she.
And all the words that one of her way may say
Have virtue to make weep whoever hears."
(Norton's translation.)
In his great affliction his grieving heart is sustained by his belief in
immortality. His vision penetrates the skies and he sees his 'lady of
virtue' in glory in the regions of the eternal.
"The gentle lady to my mind had come
Who, for the sake of her exceeding youth,
Had by the Lord most High been ta'en from earth
To that calm heaven where Mary hath her home.
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