In The Roman Amphitheatre, Verona

Two architects of Italy—austere Men who could fashion nothing small—refused To die with life, and for their purpose used This dim and topless Amphitheatre.

Some Cæsar trench’d the orb of its ellipse And call’d on distant provinces to swell Resonant arches whence his World could scan, Tier above tier, the fighters and the ships.

But Dante—having raised, as dreamer can, Higher tenfold these walls immutable— Sole in the night arena, grew aware He was himself the thing spectacular Seized by the ever-thirsting gaze of Hell,— Here, on the empty sand, a banish’d man.