Canto XXIV
And was the day of my delightAs pure and perfect as I say?The very source and fount of DayIs dash’d with wandering isles of night.
If all was good and fair we met,This earth had been the ParadiseIt never look’d to human eyesSince Adam left his garden yet.
And is it that the haze of griefHath stretch’d my former joy so great?The lowness of the present state,That sets the past in this relief?
Or that the past will always winA glory from its being far;And orb into the perfect starWe saw not, when we moved therein?