Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v2.djvu/21

Rh "Who are you? ye who, counter the blind river,

Have fled away from the eternal prison?"

Moving those venerable plumes, he said:

"Who guided you? or who has been your lamp

In issuing forth out of the night profound,

That ever black makes the infernal valley?

The laws of the abyss, are they thus broken?

Or is there changed in heaven some counsel new,

That being damned ye come unto my crags?"

Then did my Leader lay his grasp upon me,

And with his words, and with his hands and signs,

Reverent he made in me my knees and brow;

Then answered him: "I came not of myself;

A Lady from Heaven descended, at whose prayers

I aided this one with my company.

But since it is thy will more be unfolded

Of our condition, how it truly is,

Mine cannot be that this should be denied thee.

This one has never his last evening seen,

But by his folly was so near to it

That very little time was there to turn.

As I have said, I unto him was sent

To rescue him, and other way was none

Than this to which I have myself betaken.