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And I with orison and abstinence,

       And Francis with humility his convent.

      And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,

       And then regardest whither he has run,

       Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.

      In verity the Jordan backward turned,

       And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more

       A wonder to behold, than succour here."

      Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew

       To his own band, and the band closed together;

       Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.

      The gentle Lady urged me on behind them

       Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,

       So did her virtue overcome my nature;

      Nor here below, where one goes up and down

       By natural law, was motion e'er so swift

       That it could be compared unto my wing.

      Reader, as I may unto that devout

       Triumph return, on whose account I often

       For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,—

      Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire

       And drawn it out again, before I saw

       The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.

      O glorious stars, O light impregnated

       With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge

       All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,

      With you was born, and hid himself with you,

       He who is father of all mortal life,

       When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;

      And then when grace was freely given to me

       To enter the high wheel which turns you round,

       Your region was allotted unto me.

      To you devoutly at this hour my soul

       Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire

       For the stern pass that draws it to itself.

      "Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"

       Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now

       To have thine eves unclouded and acute;

      And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,

       Look down once more, and see how vast a world

       Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;

      So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,

       Present itself to the triumphant throng

       That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."

      I with my sight returned through one and all

       The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe

       Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;

      And that opinion I approve as best

       Which doth account it least; and he who thinks

       Of something else may truly be called just.

      I saw the daughter of Latona shining

       Without that shadow, which to me was cause

       That once I had believed her rare and dense.

      The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,

       Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves

       Around and near him Maia and Dione.

      Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove

       'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear

       The change that of their whereabout they make;

      And all the seven made manifest to me

       How great they are, and eke how swift they are,

       And how they are in distant habitations.

      The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,

       To me revolving with the eternal Twins,

       Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!

      Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.

      XXIII. The Triumph of Christ. The Virgin Mary. The Apostles. Gabriel.

       Table of Contents

      Even as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves,

       Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood

       Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,

      Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks

       And find the food wherewith to nourish them,

       In which, to her, grave labours grateful are,

      Anticipates the time on open spray

       And with an ardent longing waits the sun,

       Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn:

      Even thus my Lady standing was, erect

       And vigilant, turned round towards the zone

       Underneath which the sun displays less haste;

      So that beholding her distraught and wistful,

       Such I became as he is who desiring

       For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.

      But brief the space from one When to the other;

       Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing

       The welkin grow resplendent more and more.

      And Beatrice exclaimed: "Behold the hosts

       Of Christ's triumphal march, and all the fruit

       Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!"

      It seemed to me her face was all aflame;

       And eyes she had so full of ecstasy

       That I must needs pass on without describing.

      As when in nights serene of the full moon

       Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal

       Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,

      Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,

       A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,

       E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,

      And through the living light transparent shone

       The lucent substance so intensely clear

       Into my sight, that I sustained it not.

      O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear!

       To me she said: "What overmasters thee

       A virtue is from which naught shields itself.

      There are the wisdom and the omnipotence

       That oped the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth,

       For which there erst had been so long a yearning."

      As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself,

       Dilating so it finds not room therein,

       And down, against its nature, falls to earth,

      So did my mind, among those aliments

       Becoming larger, issue from itself,

       And that which it became cannot remember.

      "Open

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