Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/212

192 Short while my head turned thitherward I held

When many lofty towers I seemed to see,

Whereat I: "Master, say, what town is this?"

And he to me: "Because thou peerest forth

Athwart the darkness at too great a distance,

It happens that thou errest in thy fancy.

Well shalt thou see, if thou arrivest there,

How much the sense deceives itself by distance;

Therefore a little faster spur thee on."

Then tenderly he took me by the hand,

And said: "Before we farther have advanced,

That the reality may seem to thee

Less strange, know that these are not towers, but giants,

And they are in the well, around the bank,

From navel downward, one and all of them."

As, when the fog is vanishing away,

Little by little doth the sight refigure

Whate'er the mist that crowds the air conceals,

So, piercing through the dense and darksome air,

More and more near approaching tow'rd the verge,

My error fled, and fear came over me;

Because as on its circular parapets

Montereggione crowns itself with towers,

E'en thus the margin which surrounds the well