Dante Alighieri 
The Divine Comedy. Longfellow’s Translation. 

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.Ah me! how hard a thing it 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;But of the good to treat, which there I found, Speak will I of the other things I saw there.I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way.