La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri

Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Midway upon the journey of our live / I found myself within a forest dark, / For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say / What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, / Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more; / But of the good to treat, which there I found, / Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered, / So full was I of slumber at the moment / In which I had abandoned the true way.

hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables); in terza rima:

vita / oscura / smarrita

dura / forte / paura

morte / trovai / scorte

v’entrai / punto / abbandonai