"O James St. Andrea!" was its bitter cry, "Of what avail to make a screen of me? In thy unhallow'd life what part had I?"

My guide exclaim'd, when nearer him we stood,

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Say who wert thou, who thus through many a pore Breath'st forth thy mournful speech commix'd with

blood?"

"O souls," he said to us, "who are arrived
To view the shameful desolation sore
Which of its leaves my body hath deprived-
Collect them to the foot of yon sad tree.

Mine was that city which exchanged of yore
For John the Baptist her first guardian ;-he

Will always use his means to make her sad.

And were it not, in passing Arno o'er, A partial view of him may still be had, Those citizens, who built her up again

On ashes left by Attila abhorr'd,

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Their mighty labours had bestow'd in vain.From mine own roof I swung the fatal cord."

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INFERNO.

CANTO XIV.

ARGUMENT.

DANTE enters upon the third division of the seventh circle-a plain of burning sand, in which are punished those who have committed violence against God. Capaneus. An enumeration of the infernal rivers.

INFERNO.

CANTO XIV.

Love for my native country gaining force-
The scatter'd leaves I gather'd up again,

And render'd back to him, who now was hoarse.

Then came we to a boundary, which parts

The third and second circles, where are seen
The racks of justice, and her horrid arts.
These novel things more clearly now to show,

I first must mention that we reach'd a plain,
In whose ungenial bed no plant can grow:
(This plain is compass'd by the mournful wood,
Encircling which is thrown the foss profound:
And here upon the edge of both we stood.)

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