PURGATORIO, CANTO V.

Sister, the sun has ceased to shine;

By companies of twain and trine

Stars gather; from the sea

The moon comes momently.

On all the roads that ring our hill

The sighing and the hymns are still:

It is our time to gain

Strength for to-morrow's pain.

Yet still your eyes are wholly bent

Upon the way that Virgil went,

Following Sordello's sign,

With the dark Florentine.

Night now has barred their upward track:

There where the mountain-side folds back

And in the Vale of Flowers

The Princes count their hours

Those three friends sit in the clear starlight

With the green-clad angels left and right,—

Soul made by wakeful soul

More earnest for the goal.

So let us, sister, though our place

Is barren of that Valley's grace,

Sit hand in hand, till we

Seem rich as those friends be.