The Fourteenth of September: 1321-1921

As age, their shadow, follows life and birth,
So autumn shadowed summertime and spring
And day was yielding fast to equal night,
When, homeward soaring from the rustling shore
Where weary Po exchanges life for peace,
His spring-born spirit fled, so long ago.

Six slowly winding centuries ago,
Reborn was he in everlasting birth,
To taste the food for which he hungered, peace,
At marriage suppers set in endless spring,
Shoresman eternal on the radiant shore
Which never saw its sun engulft in night.

A sinful world of self-created night
He left behind, so many years ago,
A world where hatred ruled from shore to shore
And men, despite their gentle Saviour’s birth,
Like ancient Adam forfeited their spring,
For greed and discord bartering their peace.

To light the day of universal peace,
God-sent he dawned upon our bloody night,
Greatest of poets since the primal spring
Flasht forth into existence long ago.
Benignant stars presided o’er his birth,
That he might speak to every listening shore.

Still rings his voice on ocean’s either shore,
And when he speaks, our Muses hold their peace
And wonder if the world shall see the birth
Of man like him before the Judgment night,
For all he died so many years ago
When this our iron age was in its spring.

Ere winter blossom into balmy spring,
Ere peace prevail on any mortal shore
(So taught the Tuscan poet long ago),
Justice must reign: in it alone is peace.
The Hound shall chase the Wolf into the night,
Then earth and heaven shall witness a rebirth.

Heaven gave him birth, one ever blessed spring,
Whose lamp through all the night illumes our shore.
He found his peace six hundred years ago.