PARADISE.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
Longing already to search in and round
The heavenly forest, dense and living-green,
Which to the eyes tempered the new-born day,
Withouten more delay I left the bank,
Crossing the level country slowly, slowly,
Over the soil, that everywhere breathed fragrance.
A gently breathing air, that no mutation
Had in itself, smote me upon the forehead—
No heavier blow than of a pleasant breeze;
Whereat the tremulous branches readily
Did all of them bow downward toward that side
Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain;
Yet not from their upright direction bent,
So that the little birds upon their tops
Should cease the practice of their tuneful art;
But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime
Singing received they in the midst of foliage,
That made monotonous burden to their rhymes;
Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells
Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi
When Æolus unlooses the sirocco.
Already my slow steps had led me on
Into the ancient wood so far, that I
Could see no more the place where I had entered;
And, lo! my farther course cut off a river,
Which, toward the left hand, with its little waves,
Bent down the grass that on its margin sprang.
All waters that on earth most limpid are,
Would seem to have within themselves some mixture,
Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal,
Although it moves with a brown, brown current,
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of sun let in, nor of the moon.
Translation of H. W. Longfellow. Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321.