Explore "Divina Commedia" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door / A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, / Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet / Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor / Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; / Far off the noises of the world retreat; / The loud vociferations of the street / Become an undistinguishable roar. / So, as I enter here from day to day, / And leave my burden at this minster gate, / Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, / The tumult of the time disconsolate / To inarticulate murmurs dies away, / While the eternal ages watch and wait.