Divina Commedia

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 medieval 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 and all its splendors came;     And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,         The ice about thy heart melts as the snow         On mountain height; 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.