Classic Poem

Now the hard margin bears us on, while steam
?From off the water makes a canopy
?Above, to fend the fire from bank and stream.
Just as the men of Flanders anxiously
?'Twixt Bruges and Wissant build their bulwarks wide
?Fearing the thrust and onset of the sea;
Or as the Paduans dyke up Brenta's tide
?To guard their towns and castles, ere the heat
?Loose down the snows from Chiarentana's side,
Such fashion were the brinks that banked the leat,
?Save that, whoe'er he was, their engineer
?In breadth and height had builded them less great.
Already we'd left the wood behind so far
?That I, had I turned back to view those glades,
?Could not have told their whereabouts; and here,
Hurrying close to the bank, a troop of shades
?Met us, who eyed us much as passers-by
?Eye one another when the daylight fades
To dusk and a new moon is in the sky,
?And knitting up their brows they squinnied at us
?Like an old tailor at the needle's eye.
Then, while the whole group peered upon me thus,
?One of them recognized me, who caught hard
?At my gown's hem, and cried: ‘O marvellous!’
When he put out his hand to me, I stared
?At his scorched face, searching him through and through,
?So that the shrivelled skin and features scarred
Might not mislead my memory: then I knew:
?And, stooping down to bring my face near his,
?I said: ‘What, you here, Ser Brunetto? you!’
And he: ‘My son, pray take it not amiss
?If now Brunetto Latini at thy side
?Turn back awhile, letting this troop dismiss.’
‘With all my heart I beg you to,’ I cried;
?‘Or I'll sit down with you, as you like best,
?If he there will permit—for he's my guide.’
‘Oh, son,’ said he, ‘should one of our lot rest
?One second, a hundred years he must lie low,
?Nor even beat the flames back from his breast.
Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will go,
?And then rejoin my household, who thus race
?Forever lost, and weeping for their woe.’
I durst not venture from the road to pace
?Beside him, so I walked with down-bent head,
?Like some devout soul in a holy place.
He thus began: ‘What chance or fate has led
?Thy footsteps here before thy final day?
?And who is this that guides thee?’ So I said:
‘Up in the sunlit life I lost my way
?In a dark vale, before my years had come
?To their full number. Only yesterday
At morn I turned my back upon its gloom;
?This other came, found me returning there,
?Stopped me, and by this path now leads me home.’
And he made answer: ‘Follow but thy star;
?Thou canst not fail to win the glorious haven,
?If in glad life my judgement did not err.
Had I not died so soon, I would have given
?Counsel and aid to cheer thee in thy work,
?Seeing how favoured thou hast been by heaven.
But that ungrateful, that malignant folk
?Which formerly came down from Fiesole,
?And still is grained of mountain and hewn rock,
For thy good deeds will be thine enemy—
?With cause; for where the bitter sloes are rooted
?Is no fit orchard for the sweet fig-tree.
A blind people, and always so reputed,
?Proud, envious, covetous, since times remote;
?Cleanse off their customs lest thou be polluted.
Fortune has honours for thee—of such note,
?Both sides will seek to snatch thee and devour;
?But yet the good grass shall escape the goat.
Let Fiesole's wild beasts scratch up their sour
?Litter themselves from their rank native weed,
?Nor touch the plant, if any such can flower
Upon their midden, in whose sacred seed
?Survives the Roman line left there to dwell
?When this huge nest of vice began to breed.’
I answered him: ‘Might I have had my will
?Believe me, you'd not yet been thrust apart
?From human life; for I keep with me still,
Stamped on my mind, and now stabbing my heart,
?The dear, benign, paternal image of you,
?You living, you hourly teaching me the art
By which men grow immortal; know this too:
?I am so grateful, that while I breathe air
?My tongue shall speak the thanks which are your due.
Your words about my future I'll write fair,
?With other texts, to show to a wise lady
?Who'll gloss them, if I ever get to her.
This much I'd have you know: I can stand steady,
?So conscience chide not, facing unafraid
?Whatever Fortune brings, for I am ready.
Time and again I've heard these forecasts made;
?The whims of Luck shall find me undeterred,
?So let her ply her wheel, the churl his spade.’
And when my master's ear had caught that word
?He turned right-face-about, and looked me straight
?In the eyes and said: ‘Well-heeded is well-heard.’
Yet none the less I move on in debate
?With Ser Brunetto, asking him whose fame
?In all his band is widest and most great.
‘Some,’ he replies, ‘it will be well to name;
?The rest we must pass over, for sheer dearth
?Of time—'twould take too long to mention them.
All these, in brief, were clerks and men of worth
?In letters and in scholarship—none more so;
?And all defiled by one same taint on earth.
In that sad throng goes Francis of Accorso,
?And Priscian; could thy hunger have been sated
?By such scabbed meat, thou mightest have seen also
Him whom the Servant of servants once translated
?From Arno to Bacchiglione, where he left
?The body he'd unstrung and enervated.
I would say more, but must not; for a drift
?Of fresh dust rising from the sandy ground
?Warns me to cease and make my going swift;
Here come some folk with whom I mayn't be found;
?Keep handy my Thesaurus , where I yet
?Live on; I ask no more.’ Then he turned round,
And seemed like one of those who over the flat
?And open course in the fields beside Verona
?Run for the green cloth; and he seemed, at that,
Not like a loser, but the winning runner.