CANTO I ONE night, when half my life behind me lay, I wandered from the straight lost path afar. Through the great dark was no releasing way; Above that dark was no relieving star. If yet that terrored night I think or say, As death’s cold hands its fears resuming are. Gladly the dreads I felt, too dire to tell, The hopeless, pathless, lightless hours forgot, I turn my tale to that which next befell, When the dawn opened, and the night was not. The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot, Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell, And though it kindled from the nether hell, Or from the Star that all men leads, alike It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow. How first I entered on that path astray, Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know. When gained my feet the upward, lighted way, I backward gazed, as one the drowning sea, The deep strong ti...