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Home  »  American Sonnets  »  Héloïse Durant

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

Dante’s Mask

Héloïse Durant

AND this is all now left of thee—a mask

Of grave, worn features, still so proud in death.

No bitter jest can wound thee by a breath,

Nor idle mocker now in scoffing ask

Thy mission here. Completed all thy task,

And won forever the immortal wreath;

While saddest of sad brows rests still beneath,

Heart tempest-tost doth now in God’s light bask.

Pale image of great poet and brave man,

Thou art to me as monitor and friend.

When those sad lips and sunken eyes I scan,

I see the lines of will that naught could rend;

Dauntless to death, still free tho’ Florence ban,

Proving thy strength, endurance to the end.