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Dante on Beatrice
Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare.

So gentle and so beauteous doth appear
My lady when she maketh a salute,
That every tongue, trembling, becometh mute;
The eye to look upon her doth not dare.
Though conscious that her praise pervades the air,
In beauty clothed, she moveth modestly
As if she were a being from on high
Come down to earth to show a marvel here.
So grateful seems the vision from above
The heart drinks sweetness from the entranced eye
Which would mock Fancy if it were not proved;
And from her lips it seems as there were moved
A delicate spirit, breathing, full of love
Which ever biddeth the rapt soul to sigh.

Translated on the banks of the Murrumbidgee
circa 1841 by G.W. Rusden