Turned round his head where he had had his legs, And down upon the margin seated me; Lucifer in the same way I had left him ; And if I then became disquieted, Let stolid people think who do not see There where we were, but dungeon natural, My Master," said I when I had arisen, Thus upside down? and how in such short time And he to me: "Thou still imaginest Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point And now beneath the hemisphere art come Opposite that which overhangs the vast Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere Here it is morn when it is evening there; And he who with his hair a stairway made us Upon this side he fell down out of heaven; And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure A place there is below, from Beelzebub As far receding as the tomb extends, Which not by sight is known, but by the sound Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth 130 Through chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed With course that winds about and slightly falis. The Guide and I into that hidden road Now entered, to return to the bright world; 135 We mounted up, he first and I the second, Till I beheld through a round aperture Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear; Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. I ENTER, and I see thee in the gloom Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine ! And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. The congregation of the dead make room For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, And lamentations from the crypts below; And then a voice celestial that begins With the pathetic words, 66 Although your sins As scarlet be." and ends with "as the snow." PURGATORIO. CANTO I. To run o'er better waters hoists its sail That leaves behind itself a sea so cruel; Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself, But let dead Poesy here rise again, O holy Muses, since that I am yours, And here Calliope somewhat ascend, My song accompanying with that sound, Of which the miserable magpies felt The blow so great, that they despaired of pardon. That was upgathered in the cloudless aspect Unto mine eyes did recommence delight Soon as I issued forth from the dead air, Which had with sadness filled mine eyes and breast. Veiling the Fishes that were in her escort. There where the Wain had disappeared already, |