The Divine Comedy

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er; Far off the noises of the world retreat; The loud vociferations of the street Become an undistinguishable roar. So, as I enter here from day to day, And leave my burden at this minster gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate To inarticulate murmurs dies away, While the eternal ages watch and wait.

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, Uprose this poem of the earth and air, This medieval miracle of song!

Midway upon the journey of our life2 I found myself within a forest dark,3 For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more; But of the good to treat, which there I found, Speak will I of the other things I saw there. I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way. But after I had reached a mountain’s foot,4 At that point where the valley terminated,5 Which had with consternation pierced my heart, Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders, Vested already with that planet’s rays6 Which leadeth others right by every road. Then was the fear a little quieted That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout7 The night, which I had passed so piteously. And even as he, who, with distressful breath, Forth issued from the sea upon the shore, Turns to the water perilous and gazes; So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward, Turn itself back to re-behold the pass Which never yet a living person left.8 After my weary body I had rested, The way resumed I on the desert slope, So that the firm foot ever was the lower.9 And lo! almost where the ascent began,10 A panther light and swift exceedingly,11 Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er! And never moved she from before my face, Nay, rather did impede so much my way, That many times I to return had turned.12 The time was the beginning of the morning, And up the sun was mounting with those stars13 That with him were, what time the Love Divine At first in motion set those beauteous things; So were to me occasion of good hope, The variegated skin of that wild beast, The hour of time, and the delicious season; But not so much, that did not give me fear A lion’s aspect which appeared to me.14 He seemed as if against me he were coming With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger, So that it seemed the air was afraid of him;15 And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings16 Seemed to be laden in her meagreness, And many folk has caused to live forlorn! She brought upon me so much heaviness, With the affright that from her aspect came, That I the hope relinquished of the height. And as he is who willingly acquires, And the …