Infinite
passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which
combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony
of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The
irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the
theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a
dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last
on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life;
her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs
of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not
till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a
dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the
flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that
room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding
stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion
and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an
everlasting requiem of tragic colour.
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