The Dark Night of the Soul

CANTO 1

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah Me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage,
rough, and stern,
Which in the very though renews
the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.