Humility Evolved

O haughty Christians, wretched, sluggish souls,

all you whose inner vision is diseased,

putting your trust in things that pull you back,

do you not understand that we are worms,

each born to form the angelic butterfly,

that flies defenseless to the Final Judge?

Why do your souls’ pretensions rise so high,

since you are but defective insects still,

worms as yet imperfectly evolved?

Purgatorio (Canto X, lines 124-129), Dante Alighieri