C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

To the Tragedian Rossi

Translation of Maurice Francis Egan

TRAILING thy mantle black, I’ve seen thee break,

O Rossi, weak Ophelia’s saddened heart,

And, as the love-mad Moorish tiger, start

Strangling the sobs thy victim could not wake;

I Lear, Macbeth have seen, and seen thee take

The last cold kiss in love’s supremest part

Of older Italy;—high flights of art!—

Yet greater triumphs have I seen thee make:

For I did taste of joy and woe sublime

When I did hear thee speak the triple rhyme,—

In voice of gold you rang its iron knell;

And red, in reflex of the infernal fire,

My very soul moved by deep horror dire

Saw Alighieri, living, chant of hell!