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Dante' --On Climbing Stairs
Jan. 24th, 2007 | 12:51 am
- The breath was so pumped out of my lungs
- When I climbed aloft, I could not go onward,
- And as soon as I’d come up there I sat down.
- "Now you must shake off all your laziness,"
- My master said, "for loungers and slugabeds
- Will never reach the heights of lasting fame:
- "Without fame a man wears away his life,
- Leaving such traces of himself on earth
- As smoke on air or foam upon the water.
- "Straighten up! Conquer your fatigue
- With the spirit that wins every battle
- Unless it sink under the body’s weight.
- "Longer stairs than these wait to be climbed!
- It is not enough to leave these souls behind:
- If you have understood my words, act on them!"
- I stood up then, showing that I was better
- Supplied with wind than I had been before,
- And said, "Go on, for I am strong and ready."