II
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
· (no date)
Published 01/07/1880
Part of On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery
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.