The Vision of Hell by Dante Alighieri

IN the midway of this our mortal life,I found me in a gloomy wood, astrayGone from the path direct: and een to tellIt were no easy task, how savage wildThat forest, how robust and rough its growth,Which to remember only, my dismayRenews, in bitterness not far from death.Yet to discourse of what there good befell,All else will I relate discoverd there.How first I enterd it I scarce can say,Such sleepy dullness in that instant weighdMy senses down, when the true path I left,But when a mountains foot I reachd, where closdThe valley, that had piercd my heart with dread,I lookd aloft, and saw his shoulders broadAlready vested with that planets beam,Who leads all wanderers safe through every way. Then was a little respite to the fear,That in my hearts recesses deep had lain,All of that night, so pitifully passd:And as a man, with difficult short breath,Forespent with toiling, scapd from sea to shore,Turns to the perilous wide waste, and standsAt gaze; een so my spirit, that yet faildStruggling with terror, turnd to view the straits,That none hath passd and livd. My weary frameAfter short pause recomforted, againI journeyd on over that lonely steep,...