To Silvia
Silvia, do you recall
those days of mortal life,
when beauty sparkled in
your quick and gleaming eyes,
when, glad and pensive, the threshold
of youth you were to rise?
The quiet halls resounded,
and so the streets around,
to your perpetual chime,
while at your female chores intent
you sat, content
of vague tomorrows
in your mind.
It was the odorous May, and that
was how you spent the day.
Discarding sometimes
my beloved studies,
the toilsome papers where
my prime was
"Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here."
