“‘Depart!  Away!’ I cried out eagerly. 
    Then like a Greek she unto me replied;
    And while she stood discoursing in her pride,
    I looked, and Love approaching us I see.

  “In cloth of black full strangely was he clad,
    A little hood he wore upon his head,
    And down his face tears flowing fast he had.

  “‘Poor little wretch! what ails thee?’ then I said. 
    And he replied, ’I woful am, and sad,
    Sweet brother, for our lady who is dead.’”

About this time, Dante tells us, a person who stood to him in friendship next to his first friend, and who was of the closest relationship to his glorious lady, so that we may believe it was her brother, came to him and prayed him to write something on a lady who was dead.  Dante, believing that he meant the blessed Beatrice, accordingly wrote for him a sonnet; and then, reflecting that so short a poem appeared but a poor and bare service for one who was so nearly connected with her, added to it a Canzone, and gave both to him.

As the months passed on, his grief still continued fresh, and the memory of his lady dwelt continually with him.  It happened, that, “on that day which completed a year since this lady was made one of the citizens of eternal life, I was seated in a place where, remembering her, I drew an Angel upon certain tablets.  And while I was drawing it, I turned my eyes, and saw at my side certain men to whom it was becoming to do honor, and who were looking at what I did; and, as was afterward told me, they had been there now some time before I perceived them.  When I saw them, I rose, and, saluting them, said, ’Another was just now with me, and on that account I was in thought.’  When these persons had gone, I returned to my work, that is, to drawing figures of Angels; and while doing this, a thought came to me of saying words in rhyme, as for an anniversary poem for her, and of addressing them to those who had come to me.  Then I said this sonnet, which has two beginnings:—­

  FIRST BEGINNING.

  “Unto my mind remembering had come
    The gentle lady, with such pure worth graced,
    That by the Lord Most High she had been placed
    Within the heaven of peace, where Mary hath her home.”

  SECOND BEGINNING.

  “Unto my mind had come, indeed, in thought,
    That gentle one for whom Love’s tears are shed,
    Just at the time when, by his power led,
    To see what I was doing you were brought.

  “Love, who within my mind did her perceive,
    Was roused awake within my wasted heart,
    And said unto my sighs, ‘Go forth! depart!’
    Whereon each one in grief did take its leave.

  “Lamenting they from out my breast did go,
    And uttering a voice that often led
    The grievous tears unto my saddened eyes.

  “But those which issued with the greatest woe,
    ‘O noble soul,’ they in departing said,
    ‘To-day makes up the year since thou to heaven didst rise.’”