When I had journeyed half of our life's way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter death is hardly more severe! But to retell the good discovered there, I'll also tell the other things I saw.



Sleep brings no joy to me, Remembrance never dies, My soul is given to mystery, and lives in sighs.
Sleep brings no rest to me; The shadows of the Dead My wakening eyes may never see Surround my bed.
Sleep brings no hope to me, In soundest sleep they come, And with their doleful imag'ry Deepen the gloom.
Sleep brings no strength to me, No power renewed to brave; I only sail a wilder sea, A darker wave.
Sleep brings no friend to me, To soothe and aid to bear; They all gaze on, how scornfully, And I despair.
Sleep brings no wish to fret My harrassed heart beneath; My wish is to forget In endless sleep of death.

All of us are travelers lost, our tickets arranged at a cost unknown but beyond our means.
This odd itinerary of scenes --enigmatic, strange, unreal-- leaves us unsure how to feel. No postmortem journey is rife with more mystery than life.
Tremulous skeins of destiny flutter so ethereally around me--but then I feel its embrace is that of steel.
On the road that I have taken, one day, walking, I awaken, amazed to see where I have come, where I'm going, where I'm from.
This is not the path I thought. This is not the place I sought. This is not the dream I bought, just a fever of fate I've caught.
I'll change highways in a while, at the crossroads, one more mile. My path is lit by my own fire. I'm going only where I desire.
On the road that I have taken, one day, walking, I awaken. One day, walking, I awaken, on the road that I have taken.



Death the villain, enemy of pity, ancient mother of sorrows, justice incontestable and grave, since you have given matter for the grieving heart because of which I go pensive, my tongue will weary blaming you.
And if by grace I can make you beg, I will be forced to speak of your guilt for all vile evils, not because they are unknown to people, but to make more extreme those who go to love for nurture.
From the world you have driven courtesy and virtue, that causes praise in women: in joyful youthfulness you have lightly destroyed loveliness.
I will not tell you who this lady is except by naming her true qualities.
He who does not deserve grace may no more hope to have her company.



All I encounter in my mind dies, when I come to gaze on you, sweet joy: and when I am near you, I feel Love who says: ‘Run, if you care about dying’.
The face shows the colour of the heart, that, fainting, leans for support: and in the vast intoxicating tremor the stones beneath me cry: Death, death.
They commit a sin who see me then, if they do not comfort my bewildered soul, if only by showing that they care for me, through pity, which your mocking killed, that is descried in the dying vision of eyes that have wished for death.



Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my good.