“As little flowers, which the chill of night has bent and huddled, when the white sun strikes, grow straight and open fully on their stems, so did I, too, with my exhausted force.”

“As flowerlets drooped and puckered in the night turn up to the returning sun and spread their petals wide on his new warmth and light-just so my wilted spirits rose again and such a heat of zeal surged through my veins that I was born anew.”

“Now had the sun to that horizon reach'd,That covers, with the most exalted pointOf its meridian circle, Salem's walls;And night, that opposite to him her orbRounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,Holding the scales, that from her hands are droptWhen she reigns highest: so that where I was,Aurora's white and vermeil - tinctured cheekTo orange turn'd as she in age increased.”

“As at those words did I myself become;And all my love was so absorbed in Him,That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.”

“In that book which is my memory,On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you,Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.”

“To course across more kindly waters nowmy talent's little vessel lifts her sails,leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; and what I sing will be that second kingdom,in which the human soul is cleansed of sin,becoming worthy of ascent to Heaven.”

“I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightfoward pathway had been lost. Ah me! How hard a thing is to say, what was this forest savage, rough, and stern, which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more...”