The Way To Hell

(Based on the story of an ancient poet,Dante Alighiere born on 1265-"The Inferno")

I went astray from the narrow path
and woke to find myself in a dark wood.
How shall I say what wood that was,
I never saw so drear.
Its very memory left me shape to fear.

Death could be scarce more bitter than that place.
So drugged and loose with sleep had i become.
How I came to it I cannot rightly say;
when I first wandered there from the True way.

I found myself before a little hill;
whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart;
and the shining strengthened me against the evil fright...
through all the terrors of that piteous night.

Like a swimmer who flounders ashore from perilous seas,
my soul's still fugitive from death's masked visage.
Yea,like a swimmer who with his last breathe...
might turn to memorize the wide water of his death.

So did I turn to stare down to that place;
that place that none had ever left alive.
And started walking towards the gulf of misery and endless woe;
with reasons unkown,only God can tell...
I found myself walking upon the way to hell.

(to be continued)