On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine; Below, far lands are seen tremblingly; Its horror and its beauty are divine. Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death. Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone, Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain.…