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“Wait and see,” replied Virgilio. “He who has learned to love has made the first step to immortality.”

And after a few days, news was brought to Virgilio that Balsàbo, whom men called Di Tribaldo, was dying, and that Bianca also could not live long; and that night the master, looking from his tower beyond the Arno on the hill, that which is now called the San Gallo, or the Torre di Galileo, saw afar in the night a strange vision, the forms of a man and of a young woman, divinely beautiful, sweetly spiritual, in a golden, rosy light, ever rising higher and higher, while afar there was a sound as of harps and voices singing:

“They walked in the world as in a dream,

For nothing they saw as it now doth seem;

And all they knew of care and woe

Is now but a tale of the long ago;

And they will walk in the land on high

Where flowers are blooming ever and aye,

And every flower in its breath and bloom

Sings in the spirit with song perfume,

And the song which it sings in the land above,

In a thousand forms, is eternal love.”