Paradiso: Canto XII

As soon as that last word had spoken been
By that blest flame who gave it utterance,
That holy mill to wheel again was seen;

Nor did it wholly through one whirl advance.
Before another compassed it around,'
With song to song conformed, and dance to dance, —

Song which above our Muse doth so redound.
Above our Sirens, in those organs sweet,
As primal ray above the ray's rebound.

As oft our eyes through floating cloud-mists meet
Two rainbows parallel and like in hue,
When Juno bids her handmaid ply swift feet.

The outer from the inner born to view,
Like to the speech of that poor wandering one
Whom Love consumed as hot sun doth the dew;"

And thus they lead man's thoughts forecasting on,
By reason of God's pact with Noah made.
That earth no more shall be with flood o'errun;

So of such roses bright as never fade
There circled round us those fair garlands twain,
The inner in the outer re-portrayed.

Now when the dance and all the festal strain,
Both of the music and the radiant flame.
Of joyous love-lights all at once refrain.

Instant and impulse for them all the same,"
Just as the eyes, which, when the will invites.
Or shut or open with a single aim,

Then, from the heart of one of those new lights.
There came a voice which made me turn to see,
E'en as the star the needle's course incites.

And it began: " The love which shines in me
Draws me to name that other Leader great,
Through whom my Master gains such eulogy.

'Tis meet that each should share the other's fate,
That, as they fought together side by side,
Together we their fame should celebrate.

The host of Christ so dearly re-supplied
With armour, in the rear of its high sign
Was following, few and slow, by doubt sore tried.

When the great Emperor of the realm divine
Was moved for that imperilled band to care.
Nor for its merits, but through grace benign;

And help, as I have said, to His Spouse bare
By those two champions, through whose words and deeds
The scattered people homeward 'gan repair.

In that fair clime whence zephyr soft proceeds
The young and tender leaves to open wide.
With which our Europe clothes its verdant meads.

Nor far off from the surgings of the tide,
Behind which, when its heat is long and great,
The sun at times from sight of all doth hide,

There Calaroga stands, the fortunate,
Beneath the shelter of the mighty shield,
Where lions subject are, and subjugate.

Therein the zealous lover was revealed
Of Christ's true faith, the athlete consecrate,
Kind to her friends, to those who hate her steeled.

His mind, when it the Maker did create.
Was with that living energy replete.
It made his mother prophet of his fate;

And soon as the espousals were complete,
Which at the font did him to true faith wed.
Where dower of blessing equal dower did meet.

The lady, who for him that promise said.
Saw in her dreams the issue wondrous rare,
Destined from him and from his heirs to spread.

And that the words his calling should declare,
A spirit went from hence the boy to name.
Named after Him, who all his soul did share.

He Dominic was called, and his the fame,
As of the tiller of the ground, whom Christ
Chose as His help His garden to reclaim.

Servant and envoy was he seen of Christ;
For the first love which in his soul found home.
Was for the first great counsel given by Christ.

Silent and wakeful oft in midnight's gloom,
He by his nurse was seen upon the ground,
As though he said, ' To this end have I come.'

O father! Felix both in fact and sound!
O mother! true Joanna in thy deed,
If that name means what in it men have found!

Not as men labour now, for worldly greed.
Following the Ostian, or Taddeo's fame.
But for that Manna which is food indeed,

In little time great doctor he became,"
So that he gave himself to tend the vine,
Which withers if the dresser merits blame;

And from the See, less now than then benign
To the honest poor, not through its own offence,
But his who sits there in degenerate line;

Not that he might with payment full dispense,
Nor yet reversion of first vacant see.
Nor tithes, which are of God's own poor the pence,

Did he demand, but only liberty
Against the erring world for that seed true
To fight, whose plants twice twelve encompass thee.

With will and doctrine then himself he threw
In Apostolic office to proceed.
Like torrent which its streams from high source drew;

And so upon the heretics' false breed
He fiercely swept, most vehemently there,
Where rebel will did most his course impede.

Full many streams from him their waters bare
The garden Catholic to irrigate,
So that its plants more living might appear.

If such was one wheel of the car where late
The holy Church found stronghold to defend.
And proved in civil strife inviolate.

Then should thy spirit clearly apprehend
The goodness of the other, in whose cause"
Thomas, ere I came, proved so kind a friend.

But now the wheel no more its circuit draws
O'er the same track, neglected and unloved;
And mould is seen where wine's crust won applause.

His brotherhood, that once straight onward moved
And in his footsteps trod, now turns so far
That what was foremost now is hindmost proved;

And soon it will be seen what harvests are
Of that bad culture gathered, when the tares
Shall mourn the sentence that the barn doth bar.

I say that one who, leaf by leaf, compares
Our book, will find some pages where 'tis writ —
As I was wont to be, so life still fares;'

But not Casal' or Acquasparta it
Produces; when these men our law apply,
This narrowing rules, that doth, too lax, acquit.

Bonaventura's life and soul am I,
Of Bagnoregio, who each left-hand care
Placed ever far below his office high;

Illuminato, Augustine are there,
First of those poor bare-footed mendicants,
Who in their girdle-cord God's friendship share.

Hugh of St. Victor near them doth advance;
Peter Mangiador, and he of Spain,
Who through twelve volumes full of light descants;

Nathan the seer; the Metropolitane,
Chrysostom; Anselm, and Donatus too,
Who our first art to teach did not disdain;

Rabanus too is there, and, full in view,
Shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachin,
Whom the prophetic spirit did imbue.

To celebrate so great a paladin
I was stirred up by that warm courtesy
Of brother Thomas, backed by words that win.

And with me too was stirred this company."