(This isn't my favorite, but I lent my hardcopy out so this is what I could find online. Read the whole things. It's so imaginative, and an unbelievable feat. The man created a compendium of the entire human experience, allegorically, in verse. UNREAL. It's a great journey, complete with a hero, and sidekick, and a girl. Maybe a photo also.. my favorite is the circle for the lustful, the giants, and of course, the betrayers on ice...)Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing iit 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,
At that point where the valley terminated,
Which has with consternation pierced my heart,
Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet's rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.
Then was the fear a little quieted
That in my heart's lake had endured throughout
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.
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