Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/110

90 I did not dare to go down from the road

Level to walk with him; but my head bowed

I held as one who goeth reverently.

And he began: "What fortune or what fate

Before the last day leadeth thee down here?

And who is this that showeth thee the way?"

"Up there above us in the life serene,"

I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,

Or ever yet my age had been completed.

But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;

This one appeared to me, returning thither,

And homeward leadeth me along this road."

And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow,

Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,

If well I judged in the life beautiful.

And if I had not died so prematurely,

Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,

I would have given thee comfort in the work.

But that ungrateful and malignant people,

Which of old time from Fesole descended,

And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,

Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;

And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs

It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.