spring reflections 2

Midway along our road of life I woke
to find myself in a secret dark wood,
for I had lost the narrow path. To evoke

what it was like—how hard, I barely could.
This wood was savage, dense and strange! The thought
of it renews those fears that I withstood,

a place so bitter, only to be caught
in death is worse. Yet there I found my share
of good, so now I'll tell what else it brought.

I cannot rightly say how I came there,
I was so drugged with sleep the moment when
I lost the true way, wandering unaware,

Yet when . . . I looked up, saw the hill's wings with their clean
early light cast from the planet whose sight
leads men straightly on every road. The scene

diminished and I felt the force of fright
lessen in the lake of my heart, that fear
I felt so piteously throughout the night.

-- Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy
Translated by Charles S. Singleton