NO. 0.
ItAVRNNA.
105
RAVENNA.
1
the rocky, wavc-boaton western
coast ot Italy, where few elites, an
cient or modern, ever grow to any great
Importance, stands Ravenna, In slumber
ous seclusion, cut off from her old time
position on the Adriatic by the centu.
rics of deposit washed down by the river
Po. Beautified and adorned in turn by
the emperors, at one time the very seat of
Byzantine art, which nourished here like
the vines in her marshes, and rescued
from the ravages of pillage and purchase
by her remoteness, Ravenna possesses
no slight attractions in her treasures of
art; but the memories that hang over its
pineta, the famous pincta that furnishe.l
Augustus with the timber for the Hect
that wafted him to Actium, arc more than
them nil.
Here where now peasants may be seen
picking up pine cones for the market and
huge oxen move lazily in and out among
its fallen trunks, hero wandered Byron
and Boccaccio, and one other noble
shade, that dwarfs them into insignifi
oence. It is that of Dante, the sorrow
crowned King of exile. Here in theso
paths, and beside the sluggish canal, he
would pace, day after day, crushing the
fragrant pine-needles beneath his feet,
and the ever-sighing branches above him,
his thoughts in fur-oft, dearly beloved
Florence whither his feet dared not fol
low his longing heart, and Ravcnnese
peasant women would point him out to
wondering-eyed children
"I.ol he strolls to Hell ami bnck.
At will. Boholdhlml how Hull' reck
Hath singed hi board and seared his cheek I"
Oilier men have given up country, home
and friends to become voluntary exiles,
careless, happy, holding no one spot
more sacred than another because it gave
them birth, or because it hold anything
dearer to ihcin lhan another might. Oth
or men, like Byron, have even learned to
hate their country on account of the ridi
cule of a few British Bards and Scotch
Reviewers, but this man, persecuted
scorned, and hated by his countrymen
loved beautiful Florence with a passion
ate love that left him no peace in absence,
day or night. There is not a work of his
during all his exile that docs not contain
some allusion to the bitterness ot it, not a
lino that docs not breathe the sadness of it.
'Thou shalt relinquish jverr thing f thco beloved
most dearly.
This, that arrow is shot from the bow of exile
nrnt of all,
And thou shall proto how salt a savor hath
tho bread of others,
Andhowhnrda path, to climb and descend a
btrangor's stairs."
Other men have taken a morbid dc
light in laying bare to tho world their
most sacred sorrows, and havo learned to
glory in their misfortunes like beggars in
their sores, but says Dante, "In almost
all parts where the Italian language is
spoken, I have gone, compelled, a wan
derer, well nigh a beggar, to show against
my will the wound of fortune."
It has been said of Byron that, in want
of a real sorrow, he was accustomed to
break his heart In verse once every six
months, hut this man literally held heart
break at bay for twenty years, till his
task was ended.
Of all the portraits of the poet that we
have, the profile that we are most accus
tomed to sec of Dante, is the most inter
esting. Carlisle describes it as simple
and grand, outlined as it were upon va
cancy, the eyes over beholding tho un
seen, the proud underlip curled in God
like scorn of the thing that was eating
his heart, while ho seems to listen to the
voice of fate. Florence thou shalt never
see, but Hell and Purgatory and Heaven,
thou shalt surely see.
Florence, living, he never saw. She
partly relented toward him and granted
him permission to return if ho would ac
knowledge the justice of his sentence and
promise allegiance for the future, but
with stern pride he replies, "If I can only
return by calling myself guilty, I will
never return." And he never returned.