Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Ravenna
By John Edmund Reade (1800–1870)(From Italy)
S
Flits the dim shadow of departed power,
Felt on the heart which thy great tale repeats;
Thou that didst prop Rome’s empire for an hour,
Shade of a shadow! yet is thine the dower
That with a ray of light hath thee arrayed,
Thou hold’st the dust of Dante; in that tower
His bones by Florence begged in vain are laid:
His passionate appeal to her as vainly made.