“Some while at heart my presence kept him sound;
    My girlish eyes to his observance lending,
  I led him with me on the right way bound. 
    When of my second age the steps ascending,
  I bore my life into another sphere,
    Then stole he from me, after others bending. 
  When I arose from flesh to spirit clear,
  When beauty, worthiness, upon me grew,
  I was to him less pleasing and less dear."[P]

[Footnote P:  Purgatory, c. xxx. vv. 118-126.—­CAYLEY’S Translation.]

But although Beatrice only gives utterance to the self-reproaches of Dante, we have seen already how fully he had atoned for this first and transient unfaithfulness of his heart.  The remainder of the “Vita Nuova” shows how little she had lost of her power over him, how reverently he honored her memory, how constant was his love of her whom he should see never again with his earthly eyes.  Returning to the “New Life,”—­

“After this tribulation,” he says, “at that time when many people were going to see the blessed image which Jesus Christ left to us as the likeness of his most beautiful countenance,[Q] which my lady now beholds in glory, it happened that certain pilgrims passed through a street which is almost in the middle of that city where the gentlest lady was born, lived, and died,—­and they went along, as it seemed to me, very pensive.  And thinking about them, I said to myself, ’These appear to me to be pilgrims from a far-off region, and I do not believe that they have even heard speak of this lady, and they know nothing of her; their thoughts are rather of other things than of her; for, perhaps, they are thinking of their distant friends, whom we do not know.’  Then I said to myself, ’I know, that, if these persons were from a neighboring country, they would show some sign of trouble as they pass through the midst of this grieving city.’  Then again I said, ’If I could hold them awhile, I would indeed make them weep before they went out from this city; for I would say words to them which would make whoever should hear them weep.’  Then, when they had passed out of sight, I proposed to make a sonnet in which I would set forth that which I had said to myself; and in order that it might appear more pity-moving, I proposed to say it as if I had spoken to them, and I said this sonnet, which begins, ‘O pilgrims.’

[Footnote Q:  The most precious relic at Rome, and the one which chiefly attracted pilgrims, during a long period of the Middle Ages, was the Veronica, or representation of the Saviour’s face, supposed to have been miraculously impressed upon the handkerchief with which he wiped his face on his way to Calvary.  It was preserved at St. Peter’s and shown only on special occasions.  Compare with this passage the lines in the Paradiso, c. xxxi. 103-8:—­

“As one that haply from Croatia came
To see our Veronica, and no whit
Could be contented with its olden fame,
Who in his heart saith, when they’re showing it,
’O Jesu Christ!  O very Lord God mine! 
Does truly this thy feature counterfeit?’”
CAYLEY.