The Whole Universe Is But

Midway Along The Journey Of Our Life I Woke To Find Myself In A Dark Wood, For I Had Wandered Off From The Straight Path. How Hard It Is To Tell What It Was Like, This Wood Of Wilderness, Savage And Stubborn (the Thought Of It Brings Back All My Old Fears), A Bitter Place! Death Could Scarce Be Bitterer. But If I Would Show The Good That Came Of It I Must Talk About Things Other Than The Good.

Those Ancients Who In Poetry Presented The Golden Age, Who Sang Its Happy State, Perhaps, In Their Parnassus, Dreamt This Place. Here, Mankind's Root Was Innocent; And Here Were Every Fruit And Never-ending Spring; These Streams--the Nectar Of Which Poets Sing.

Love With Delight Discourses In My Mindupon My Lady's Admirable Gifts...beyond The Range Of Human Intellect.

At This High Moment, Ability Failed My Capacity To Describe.

Because There Is No Man Who Can Be True And Just Judge Of Himself, So Much Will Self-love Deceive Him.