Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/34



HROUGH me the way is to the city dolent;

Through me the way is to eternal dole;

Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;

Created me divine Omnipotence,

The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,

Only eterne, and I eternal last.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

These words in sombre color I beheld

Written upon the summit of a gate;

Whence I: "Their sense is. Master, hard to me!"

And he to me, as one experienced:

"Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,

All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee

Thou shalt behold the people dolorous

Who have foregone the good of intellect."