Love And The Gentle Heart Are 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.

There, Pride, Avarice, And Envy Are The Tongues Men Know And Heed, A Babel Of Depsair

Come, Follow Me, And Leave The World To Its Babblings.

They Find Seven Cornices On Which Penitent And Redeemed Sinners Are Cleansed By The Grace Of God. On The First Cornice, That Of Pride, The Proud Are Learning Humility: Our Father, Dwelling In The Heavens, Nowise As Circumscribed, But As The Things Above, Thy First Effects, Are Dearer In Thine Eyes, Hallowed Thy Name Be And The Power Thereof, By Every Creature, As Right Meet It Is We Praise The Tender Effluence Of Thy Love. Let Come To Us, Let Come Thy Kingdom's Peace.

Lying In A Featherbed Will Bring You No Fame, Nor Staying Beneath The Quilt, And He Who Uses Up His Life Without Achieving Fame Leaves No More Vestige Of Himself On Earth Than Smoke In The Air Or Foam Upon The Water.