Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/102

82 Of naked souls beheld I many herds,

Who all were weeping very miserably,

And over them seemed set a law diverse.

Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;

And some were sitting all drawn up together,

And others went about continually.

Those who were going round were far the more,

And those were less who lay down to their torment,

But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.

O'er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,

Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,

As of the snow on Alp without a wind.

As Alexander, in those torrid parts

Of India, beheld upon his host

Flames fall unbroken till they reached the ground,

Whence he provided with his phalanxes

To trample down the soil, because the vapor

Better extinguished was while it was single;

Thus was descending the eternal heat,

Whereby the sand was set on fire, like tinder

Beneath the steel, for doubling of the dole.

Without repose forever was the dance

Of miserable hands, now there, now here,

Shaking away from off them the fresh gleeds.