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the example, then, suffice

       Him for whom Grace the experience reserves.

      If I was merely what of me thou newly

       Createdst, Love who governest the heaven,

       Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light!

      When now the wheel, which thou dost make eternal

       Desiring thee, made me attentive to it

       By harmony thou dost modulate and measure,

      Then seemed to me so much of heaven enkindled

       By the sun's flame, that neither rain nor river

       E'er made a lake so widely spread abroad.

      The newness of the sound and the great light

       Kindled in me a longing for their cause,

       Never before with such acuteness felt;

      Whence she, who saw me as I saw myself,

       To quiet in me my perturbed mind,

       Opened her mouth, ere I did mine to ask,

      And she began: "Thou makest thyself so dull

       With false imagining, that thou seest not

       What thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off.

      Thou art not upon earth, as thou believest;

       But lightning, fleeing its appropriate site,

       Ne'er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest."

      If of my former doubt I was divested

       By these brief little words more smiled than spoken,

       I in a new one was the more ensnared;

      And said: "Already did I rest content

       From great amazement; but am now amazed

       In what way I transcend these bodies light."

      Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,

       Her eyes directed tow'rds me with that look

       A mother casts on a delirious child;

      And she began: "All things whate'er they be

       Have order among themselves, and this is form,

       That makes the universe resemble God.

      Here do the higher creatures see the footprints

       Of the Eternal Power, which is the end

       Whereto is made the law already mentioned.

      In the order that I speak of are inclined

       All natures, by their destinies diverse,

       More or less near unto their origin;

      Hence they move onward unto ports diverse

       O'er the great sea of being; and each one

       With instinct given it which bears it on.

      This bears away the fire towards the moon;

       This is in mortal hearts the motive power

       This binds together and unites the earth.

      Nor only the created things that are

       Without intelligence this bow shoots forth,

       But those that have both intellect and love.

      The Providence that regulates all this

       Makes with its light the heaven forever quiet,

       Wherein that turns which has the greatest haste.

      And thither now, as to a site decreed,

       Bears us away the virtue of that cord

       Which aims its arrows at a joyous mark.

      True is it, that as oftentimes the form

       Accords not with the intention of the art,

       Because in answering is matter deaf,

      So likewise from this course doth deviate

       Sometimes the creature, who the power possesses,

       Though thus impelled, to swerve some other way,

      (In the same wise as one may see the fire

       Fall from a cloud,) if the first impetus

       Earthward is wrested by some false delight.

      Thou shouldst not wonder more, if well I judge,

       At thine ascent, than at a rivulet

       From some high mount descending to the lowland.

      Marvel it would be in thee, if deprived

       Of hindrance, thou wert seated down below,

       As if on earth the living fire were quiet."

      Thereat she heavenward turned again her face.

      II. The First Heaven, the Moon: Spirits who, having taken Sacred Vows, were forced to violate them. The Lunar Spots.

       Table of Contents

      O Ye, who in some pretty little boat,

       Eager to listen, have been following

       Behind my ship, that singing sails along,

      Turn back to look again upon your shores;

       Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure,

       In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.

      The sea I sail has never yet been passed;

       Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,

       And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

      Ye other few who have the neck uplifted

       Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which

       One liveth here and grows not sated by it,

      Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea

       Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you

       Upon the water that grows smooth again.

      Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed

       Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,

       When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!

      The con-created and perpetual thirst

       For the realm deiform did bear us on,

       As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.

      Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her;

       And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt

       And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,

      Arrived I saw me where a wondrous thing

       Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she

       From whom no care of mine could be concealed,

      Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful,

       Said unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind

       On God, who unto the first star has brought us."

      It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us,

       Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright

       As adamant on which the sun is striking.

      Into itself did the eternal pearl

       Receive us, even as water doth receive

       A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.

      If I was body, (and we here conceive not

       How one dimension tolerates another,

       Which needs must be if body enter body,)

      More

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