Into The Eternal Darkness, Into Fire And

The Human Race Finds Itself In A Better Situation When It Has The Higher Level Of Freedom.

I Presumed To Fix My Look On The Eternal Light So Long That I Consumed My Sight Thereon.

In The Midway Of This Our Mortal Life, I Found Me In A Gloomy Wood, Astray, Gone From The Path Direct.

In That Part Of The Book Of My Memory Before The Which Is Little That Can Be Read, There Is A Rubric, Saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under Such Rubric I Find Written Many Things; And Among Them The Words Which I Purpose To Copy Into This Little Book; If Not All Of Them, At The Least Their Substance.

And When He Had Put His Hand On Mine With A Cheerful Look, Wherefrom I Took Courage, He Brought Me Within To The Secret Things. Here Sighs, Laments, And Deep Wailings Were Resounding Through The Starless Air; Wherefore At First I Wept Thereat. Strange Tongues, Horrible Utterances, Words Of Woe, Accents Of Anger, Voices High And Faint, And Sounds Of Hands With Them, Were Making A Tumult Which Whirls Always In That Air Forever Dark, Like The Sand When The Whirlwind Breathes.