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 thine eyes, and look at what I am:     Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough     Hast thou become to tolerate my smile.”

I was as one who still retains the feeling     Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours     In vain to bring it back into his mind,

When I this invitation heard, deserving     Of so much gratitude, it never fades     Out of the book that chronicles the past.

If at this moment sounded all the tongues     That Polyhymnia and her sisters made     Most lubrical with their delicious milk,

To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth     It would not reach, singing the holy smile     And how the holy aspect it illumed.

And therefore, representing Paradise,     The sacred poem must perforce leap over,     Even as a man who finds his way cut off;

But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,     And of the mortal shoulder laden with it,     Should blame it not, if under this it tremble.

It is no passage for a little boat     This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,     Nor for a pilot who would spare himself.

“Why doth my face so much enamour thee,     That to the garden fair thou turnest not,     Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine     Became incarnate; there the lilies are     By whose perfume the good way was discovered.”

Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels     Was wholly ready, once again betook me     Unto the battle of the feeble brows.

As in the sunshine, that unsullied streams     Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers     Mine eyes with shadow covered o’er have seen,

So troops of splendours manifold I saw     Illumined from above with burning rays,     Beholding not the source of the effulgence.

O power benignant that dost so imprint them!     Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope     There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough.

The name of that fair flower I e’er invoke     Morning and evening utterly enthralled     My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.

And when in both mine eyes depicted were     The glory and greatness of the living star     Which there excelleth, as it here excelled,

Athwart the heavens a little torch descended     Formed in a circle like a coronal,     And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it.

Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth     On earth, and to itself most draws the soul,     Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders,

Compared unto the sounding of that lyre     Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful,     Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue.

“I am Angelic Love, that circle round     The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb     That was the hostelry of our Desire;

And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while     Thou followest thy Son, and mak’st diviner     The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there.”

Thus did the circulated melody     Seal itself up; and all the other lights     Were making to resound the name of Mary.

The regal mantle of the volumes all     Of that world, which most fervid is and living     With breath of God and with his works and ways,

Extended over us its inner border,     So very distant, that the semblance of it     There where I was not yet appeared to me.

Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power     Of following the incoronated flame,     Which mounted upward near to its own seed.

And as a little child, that towards its mother     Stretches its arms, when it the milk has taken,     Through impulse kindled into outward flame,

Each of those gleams of whiteness upward reached     So with its summit, that the deep affection     They had for Mary was revealed to me.

Thereafter they remained there in my sight,     ‘Regina coeli’ singing with such sweetness,     That ne’er from me has the delight departed.

O, what exuberance is garnered up     Within those richest coffers, which had been     Good husbandmen for sowing here below!

There they enjoy and live upon the treasure     Which was acquired while weeping in the exile     Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left.

There triumpheth, beneath the exalted Son     Of God and Mary, in his victory,     Both with the ancient council and the new,

He who doth keep the keys of such a glory.