Dante and Virgil at the Gate by William Blake
This poem, the second in my sequence ‘On Reading the Commedia’, a new sequence of nine poems about the experience of reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, seems a good one to share on Holy Saturday, the day on which we think of Christ descending into Hell to bring his light and good news to the dead, as Peter says, ‘preaching to the souls in prison’. There are many ways in which we might understand that phrase in the creed ‘He descended into Hell’. Dante’s allegory suggests that at one level the hell into which Christ descends to set us free is the dark terrain of our own souls, the terrain he maps out and invites us to traverse in his Inferno.
My own poem is written in the conviction that that there is no depth or recess, no sin or secret, in me or in anyone, beyond the light of Christ, but we have to open the gate and let him come down to our depths, let his Light reveal and name and heal what we have hidden. Dante’s poem, his amazing cartography of Hell, is written to help us do that. So here is the second of my ‘Dante ‘ Sequence. As before, you can hear the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button or the title.
The whole sequence is now collected together and published in my book The Singing Bowl which you can buy on Amazon or order from any good bookshop. You can also read and hear the whole sequence on this blog, the final poem Here contains links to all the others.
Begin the song exactly where you are
For where you are contains where you have been
And holds the vision of your final sphere
And do not fear the memory of sin;
There is a light that heals, and, where it falls,
Transfigures and redeems the darkest stain
Into translucent colour. Loose the veils
And draw the curtains back, unbar the doors,
Of that dread threshold where your spirit fails,
The hopeless gate that holds in all the fears
That haunt your shadowed city, fling it wide
And open to the light that finds and fares
Through the dark pathways where you run and hide,
through all the alleys of your riddled heart,
As pierced and open as His wounded side.
Open the map to Him and make a start,
And down the dizzy spirals, through the dark
His light will go before you, let Him chart
And name and heal. Expose the hidden ache
To him, the stinging fires and smoke that blind
Your judgement, carry you away, the mirk
And muted gloom in which you cannot find
The love that you once thought worth dying for.
Call Him to all you cannot call to mind
He comes to harrow Hell and now to your
Well guarded fortress let His love descend.
The icy ego at your frozen core
Can hear His call at last. Will you respond?
Malcolm Guite 