The Purgatorial Verse Form

“Thus you may understand that love alone
is the true seed of every merit in you,
and of all acts for which you must atone.”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio


Nor can I give you sun or warmth
or anything good for you.
It is a cold house: no hearth
flames and beckons. And the few
who understand, will surely blame
my shutting out the clear hypocrisy
of time. There is a name
for this; it is what we feel and see.
The usual frost and fog, perhaps,
or maybe it comes from high above
the regions known to us from maps.
I cannot call it love.

Nor can I live for you, now or then:
I am too bound to lose
the way from what has been
to what I cannot choose.
Passion alone cannot cut through
the layers of this pretense--
Sorrow, yes, but my "Although"
destroys each act of penitence.
Feeling is beggared by any future
and changes as the seasons move
between us; it is simply nature.
I cannot call it love.