When he who all the world illuminates     Out of our hemisphere so far descends     That on all sides the daylight is consumed,

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,     Doth suddenly reveal itself again     By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.

And came into my mind this act of heaven,     When the ensign of the world and of its leaders     Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,     By far more luminous, did songs begin     Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,     How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,     That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!

After the precious and pellucid crystals,     With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,     Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river     That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,     Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.

And as the sound upon the cithern’s neck     Taketh its form, and as upon the vent     Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,

Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,     That murmuring of the eagle mounted up     Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.

There it became a voice, and issued thence     From out its beak, in such a form of words     As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.

“The part in me which sees and bears the sun     In mortal eagles,” it began to me,     “Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;

For of the fires of which I make my figure,     Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head     Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil     Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,     Who bore the ark from city unto city;

Now knoweth he the merit of his song,     In so far as effect of his own counsel,     By the reward which is commensurate.

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.