Richard Garnett - Dante lyrics

Poet, whose unscarr'd feet have trodden Hell, By what grim path and dread environing Of fire couldst thou that dauntless footstep bring And plant it firm amid the dolorous cell Of darkness where perpetually dwell The spirits cursed beyond imagining? Or else is thine a visionary wing, And all thy terror but a tale to tell? Neither and both, thou seeker! I have been No wilder path than thou thyself dost go, Close mask'd in an impenetrable screen, Which having rent I gaze around, and know What tragic wastes of gloom, before unseen, Curtain the soul that strives and sins below.