Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон

      Canto I. The Dark Forest. The Hill of Difficulty. The Panther, the Lion, and the Wolf. Virgil.

       Table of Contents

      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 it 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 had 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.