Inferno: Canto 1 Dante Alighieri (Ft. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

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.