Francesca da Rimini: Francesca’s tragic love in Dante’s Inferno inspires poets to portray desire as damnation: “We read together, hand in hand, / and love became the final brand.”; Her tale becomes poetic metaphor for passion’s ruin: “The book was luring, not the sin— / and so we fell, and so we’ve been.”; Poets borrow her voice to make guilt lyrical: “I did not know the world was cruel— / I only knew his kiss, his jewel.”; Her eternal wind becomes symbol of unending longing: “We drift, we kiss, we never rest— / the storm is love, and love is guest.”; A poet might write, “Dante wept, but I would not— / for in that kiss, I found my god.”; Francesca teaches poets how to make damnation beautiful: “Hell is not fire, but endless near— / the touch you cannot hold, the tear.”