Mezzo Cammin
Half my life is gone, and I have letThe years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,--
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,--
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
About "Mezzo Cammin"
The title of Longfellow's poem refers to the first lines of one of the most famous poems in literature, Dante Alighieri's Inferno, from his Divine Comedy.
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitaLongfellow himself provided one of the best English-language translations of Dante's masterpiece. He rendered the first lines:
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.