Changanpuzha’s tribute to Kalidasa reminded one of the magnificent tribute
to Dante by Longfellow.

I enter, I see thee in the gloom,
OF the long aisles, O Poet Saturnine !

( Saturn, the Melancholy Planet,
Was rising at Dante’s Nativity )

Thy Sacred Song is like the Trump of Doom,
And in thy bosom what human sympathies,
What soft compassion glows; as in the skies,
The tender stars with their shaded lamps relume.

With snow white veil and garments of flame,
She ( Beatrice ) stands beforee thee who not long ago,
Filled thy young  heart with the passion and the woe,
From which thy Song and and all its splendors came !

I wake amaze and in the windows bright,
Shine the forms of holy who died,
Hereafter martyred,
And hereafter crucified.

And the Great Rose upon its leaves displays,
Love’s triumph and the angellc roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied,
And Beatrice again at Dante’s side !

O star of Morning and Liberty,
O Bringer of the Light, whose splendor
Shines above darkness of Alps,
Forerunner of the day that is to be !

About Kalidasa, the Poet Laureate of Kerala wrote,

Centuries may have come and gone,
After thy rise in the Orient,
But in the eternal horizon of Universal Memory,
Thou art the star which changeth not !