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      Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

       He that approacheth nearest to my beak

       Did the poor widow for her son console;

      Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost

       Not following Christ, by the experience

       Of this sweet life and of its opposite.

      He who comes next in the circumference

       Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,

       Did death postpone by penitence sincere;

      Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment

       Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer

       Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.

      The next who follows, with the laws and me,

       Under the good intent that bore bad fruit

       Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;

      Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced

       From his good action is not harmful to him,

       Although the world thereby may be destroyed.

      And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,

       Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores

       That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;

      Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is

       With a just king; and in the outward show

       Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

      Who would believe, down in the errant world,

       That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round

       Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?

      Now knoweth he enough of what the world

       Has not the power to see of grace divine,

       Although his sight may not discern the bottom."

      Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,

       First singing and then silent with content

       Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,

      Such seemed to me the image of the imprint

       Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will

       Doth everything become the thing it is.

      And notwithstanding to my doubt I was

       As glass is to the colour that invests it,

       To wait the time in silence it endured not,

      But forth from out my mouth, "What things are these?"

       Extorted with the force of its own weight;

       Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

      Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled

       The blessed standard made to me reply,

       To keep me not in wonderment suspended:

      "I see that thou believest in these things

       Because I say them, but thou seest not how;

       So that, although believed in, they are hidden.

      Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name

       Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity

       Cannot perceive, unless another show it.

      'Regnum coelorum' suffereth violence

       From fervent love, and from that living hope

       That overcometh the Divine volition;

      Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man,

       But conquers it because it will be conquered,

       And conquered conquers by benignity.

      The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth

       Cause thee astonishment, because with them

       Thou seest the region of the angels painted.

      They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,

       Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith

       Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.

      For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back

       Unto good will, returned unto his bones,

       And that of living hope was the reward,—

      Of living hope, that placed its efficacy

       In prayers to God made to resuscitate him,

       So that 'twere possible to move his will.

      The glorious soul concerning which I speak,

       Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,

       Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

      And, in believing, kindled to such fire

       Of genuine love, that at the second death

       Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

      The other one, through grace, that from so deep

       A fountain wells that never hath the eye

       Of any creature reached its primal wave,

      Set all his love below on righteousness;

       Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose

       His eye to our redemption yet to be,

      Whence he believed therein, and suffered not

       From that day forth the stench of paganism,

       And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

      Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel

       Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism

       More than a thousand years before baptizing.

      O thou predestination, how remote

       Thy root is from the aspect of all those

       Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

      And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained

       In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,

       We do not know as yet all the elect;

      And sweet to us is such a deprivation,

       Because our good in this good is made perfect,

       That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will."

      After this manner by that shape divine,

       To make clear in me my short-sightedness,

       Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

      And as good singer a good lutanist

       Accompanies with vibrations of the chords,

       Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

      So, while it spake, do I remember me

       That I beheld both of those blessed lights,

       Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

      Moving unto the words their little flames.

      XXI. The Seventh Heaven, Saturn: The Contemplative. The Celestial Stairway. St. Peter Damiano. His Invectives against the Luxury of the Prelates.

       Table of Contents

      Already on my Lady's face mine eyes

       Again were fastened, and with these my mind,

       And from all other purpose was withdrawn;

      And she smiled not; but "If I were to smile,"

      

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