rhyme, I proposed to write a sonnet, in
which I would salute all the vassals of Love; and praying them to give
an interpretation of my vision, I wrote to them that which I had seen in
my slumber. And I began then this sonnet:--

"To every captive soul and gentle heart
Before whose sight may come the present
word,
That they may thereupon their thoughts
impart,
Be greeting in Love's name, who is their
lord.

"Now of those hours wellnigh one third had
gone
In which each star appears in heaven most
bright,
When on a sudden Love before me shone,
To think upon whose being gives me fright.

"Joyful seemed Love, and he was keeping
My heart within his hands, while on his arm
He held my Lady, covered o'er and sleeping.

"Then waking her, he with this flaming heart
Did humbly feed her, fearful of some harm.
Sudden I saw him weep, and quick depart."

This sonnet is somewhat obscure in the details of its meaning, and
has little beauty, but it is of interest as being the earliest poetic
composition by Dante that has been preserved for us, and it is curious
as being the account of a vision. In our previous article on the "New
Life," we referred to the fact of this book being in great part composed
of the account of a series of visions, thus connecting itself in the
form of its imaginations with the great work of Dante's later years. As
a description of things unseen except by the inward eye, this sonnet
is bound in poetic connection to the nobler visions of the "Divina
Commedia." The private stamp of Dante's imagination is indelibly
impressed upon it.

He tells us that many answers were made to this sonnet, and "among those
who replied to it was he whom I call the first of my friends, and he
wrote a sonnet which began,

'Thou seest in my opinion every worth.'

This was, as it were, the beginning of our friendship when he knew
that it was I who had sent these verses to him." This first of Dante's
friends was Guido Cavalcanti. Their friendship was of long duration,
beginning thus in Dante's nineteenth year, and ending only with Guido's
death, in 1300, when Dante was thirty-five years old. It may be taken as
a proof of its intimacy and of Dante's high regard for the genius of his
friend, that, when Dante, in his course through Hell, at Easter in 1300,
represents himself as being recognized by the father of Guido, the first