Divina Commedia
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
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A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
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Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
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Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
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Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er;
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Far off the noises of the world retreat;
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The loud vociferations of the street
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Become an undistinguishable roar.
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So, as I enter here from day to day,
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And leave my burden at this minster gate,
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Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
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The tumult of the time disconsolate
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To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
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While the eternal ages watch and wait. II.2.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
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This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
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Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
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Parvis and portal bloom like trellised
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And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
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But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
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Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
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And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
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Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
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What exultations trampling on despair,
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What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
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What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
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Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
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This mediжval miracle of song!
III. Written December 22, 1865.3.
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
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Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
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And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
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The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
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The congregation of the dead make room
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For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
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Like rooks that haunt Ravenna’s groves of pine
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The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
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From the confessionals I hear arise
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Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
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And lamentations from the crypts below;
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And then a voice celestial that begins
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With the pathetic words, “Although your sins
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As scarlet be,” and ends with “as the snow.”
IV. Written May 5, 1867.4.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
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She stands before thee, who so long ago
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Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
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From which thy song and all its splendors came;
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And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
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The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
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On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
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Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
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Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
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As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
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Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
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Lethe and Eunoл the remembered dream
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And the forgotten sorrow bring at last
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That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V. Written January 16, 1866.5.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
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With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
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Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
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And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
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Christ’s Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
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With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
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And Beatrice again at Dante’s side
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No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
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And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
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Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
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And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
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And the melodious bells among the spires
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O’er all the house-tops and through heaven above
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Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI. Written March 7, 1866.6.
O star of morning and of liberty!
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O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
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Above the darkness of the Apennines,
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Forerunner of the day that is to be!
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The voices of the city and the sea,
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The voices of the mountains and the pines,
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Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
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Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
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Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
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Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
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As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
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Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
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In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
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And many are amazed and many doubt.
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