Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Mezzo Cammin” (1842)

The title, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes its name from the first line of the Inferno. Longfellow, the first American to translate Dante’s Commedia into English, “was 35 when he wrote this poem, halfway through the scriptural lifespan of 70 years.”    —Representative Poetry Online (retrieved on July 7, 2009)