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Purgatorio XXVIII. 1–33.
LONGING already to search in and round | |
| The heavenly forest, dense and living-green, | |
| Which tempered to the eyes the new-born day. | |
| Withouten more delay I left the bank, | |
| Crossing the level country slowly, slowly, | 5 |
| Over the soil, that everywhere breathed fragrance. | |
| A gently-breathing air, that no mutation | |
| Had in itself, smote me upon the forehead | |
| No heavier blow than of a pleasant breeze, | |
| Whereat the tremulous branches readily | 10 |
| Did all of them bow downward towards that side | |
| Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain; | |
| Yet not from their upright direction bent | |
| So that the little birds upon their tops | |
| Should cease the practice of their tuneful art; | 15 |
| But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime | |
| Singing received they in the midst of foliage | |
| That made monotonous burden to their rhymes, | |
| Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells, | |
| Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi, | 20 |
| When Æolus unlooses the Sirocco. | |
| Already my slow steps had led me on | |
| Into the ancient wood so far, that I | |
| Could see no more the place where I had entered. | |
| And lo! my further course cut off a river, | 25 |
| Which, tow’rds the left hand, with its little waves, | |
| Bent down the grass, that on its margin sprang. | |
| All waters that on earth most limpid are, | |
| Would seem to have within themselves some mixture, | |
| Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal, | 30 |
| Although it moves on with a brown, brown current, | |
| Under the shade perpetual, that never | |
| Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. | |
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