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Purgatorio - Contents
Paradiso - Contents
"
Official"
Appendix
Six
sonnets on Dante’s
Divine Comedy
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
I
Oft have I seen at some
cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the
dust and
heat,
Lay down his burden, and with
reverent feet
Enter, and
cross himself, and on the
floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an
undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The
tumult of the time
disconsolate
To
inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the
eternal ages
watch and wait.
II
How strange the
sculptures that
adorn these
towers!
This crowd of
statues, in whose folded sleeves
Birds build their nests; while
canopied with leaves
Parvis and
portal bloom like
trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
But fiends and dragons on the
gargoyled eaves
Watch the
dead Christ between
the living
thieves,
And, underneath, the
traitor Judas lowers!
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
What
exultations trampling on despair,
What
tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What
passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This
mediaeval miracle of song!
III
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 air is filled with some unknown
perfume;
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, "Although your
sins
As
scarlet be," and ends with "as the
snow."
IV
With
snow-white veil, and
garments as of
flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with
passion and the woe
From which thy song in all its splendors came;
And while with stern
rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On
mountain heights, and in swift overflow
Comes
gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full
confession; and a
gleam
As of the dawn on some
dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted
forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoe--the
remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow--bring at last
That
perfect pardon which is
perfect peace.
V
I Lift mine eyes, and all the
windows blaze
With forms of saints and holy men who died,
Here
martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves
displays
Christ's Triumph, and the
angelic roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
And
Beatrice again at
Dante's side
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of
praise.
And then the
organ sounds, and unseen choirs
Sing the old
Latin hymns of peace and love
And benedictions of the
Holy Ghost;
And the melodious bells among the spires
O'er all the
house-tops and through heaven above
Proclaim the
elevation of the
Host!
VI
O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor
shines
Above the darkness of the
Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The
voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the
familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of
Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the
nations; and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of
Rome, and the new
proselytes,
In their own language hear thy
wondrous word,
And many are
amazed and many
doubt.