For they were with me, moaning in their sleep,
And begging bread.  Ah, for those darling ones! 
Right cruel art thou, if thou dost not weep

In thinking of my soul’s sad augury; 25
And if thou weepest not now, weep never more! 
They were already waked, as wont drew nigh

The allotted hour for food, and in that hour
Each drew a presage from his dream.  When I
’Heard locked beneath me of that horrible tower 30

The outlet; then into their eyes alone
I looked to read myself,’ without a sign
Or word.  I wept not—­turned within to stone.

They wept aloud, and little Anselm mine,
Said—­’twas my youngest, dearest little one,—­ 35
“What ails thee, father?  Why look so at thine?”

In all that day, and all the following night,
I wept not, nor replied; but when to shine
Upon the world, not us, came forth the light

Of the new sun, and thwart my prison thrown 40
Gleamed through its narrow chink, a doleful sight,
’Three faces, each the reflex of my own,

Were imaged by its faint and ghastly ray;’
Then I, of either hand unto the bone,
Gnawed, in my agony; and thinking they 45

Twas done from sudden pangs, in their excess,
All of a sudden raise themselves, and say,
“Father! our woes, so great, were yet the less

Would you but eat of us,—­twas ’you who clad
Our bodies in these weeds of wretchedness; 50
Despoil them’.”  Not to make their hearts more sad,

I ‘hushed’ myself.  That day is at its close,—­
Another—­still we were all mute.  Oh, had
The obdurate earth opened to end our woes!

The fourth day dawned, and when the new sun shone, 55
Outstretched himself before me as it rose
My Gaddo, saying, “Help, father! hast thou none

For thine own child—­is there no help from thee?”
He died—­there at my feet—­and one by one,
I saw them fall, plainly as you see me. 60

Between the fifth and sixth day, ere twas dawn,
I found ‘myself blind-groping o’er the three.’ 
Three days I called them after they were gone.

Famine of grief can get the mastery.

***

SONNET.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF CAVALCANTI.

GUIDO CAVALCANTI TO DANTE ALIGHIERI: 

[Published by Forman (who assigns it to 1815), “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]