Paradiso: Canto XXXIII

"O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Lowlier and loftier than all creatures seen.
Goal of the counsels of the Eternal One,

Thyself art she who this our nature mean
Hast so ennobled that its Maker great
Deigned to become what through it made had been.

In thy blest womb the Love renewed its heat
By whose warm glow in this our peace eterne
This heavenly flower first did germinate.

Here, in Love's noon-tide brightness, thou dost burn
For us in glory; and to mortal sight
Art living fount of hope to all that yearn.

Lady, thou art so great and of such might,
That he who seeks grace yet turns not to thee.
Would have his prayer, all wingless, take its flight;

Nor only doth thy kind benignity
Give help to him who asks, but many a time
Doth it prevent the prayer in bounty free.

In thee is mercy, pity, yea, sublime
Art thou in greatness, and in thee, with it,
Whatever of good is in creation's clime.

He who stands here, who, from the lowest pit
Of all creation, to this point hath pass'd
The lines of spirits, each in order fit.

On thee for grace of strength himself doth cast,
So that he may his eyes in vision raise
Upwards to that Salvation noblest, last.

And I, who never for my power to gaze
Burnt more than now for his, pour all my prayer.
And pray it meet not failure nor delays:"

Wherefore do thou all clouds that yet impair
His vision with mortality remove,
That he may see the joy beyond compare.

And next I pray thee. Queen, whose power doth prove
Matched with thy will, that thou wilt keep his mind,"
After such gaze, that thence it may not rove.

Let thy control all human impulse bind;
See Beatrice how through my prayers she
And many a saint their hands in prayer have joined."

The eyes which God with love and praise doth see,
Fixed on the pleader, showed us clear and plain
How dear to her are prayers that earnest be.

Then to the Light eterne they looked again,
Whereon one scarce can dream that eye most clear
Of any creature might its gaze maintain.

And I, who at that hour was drawing near
The end of all my longings, as was meet.
The ardour of my yearnings ended here.

Then me with nod and smile did Bernard greet.
That I should upward look, but I became,
E'en of myself, full apt his wish to meet;

For as my vision to more pureness came.
Still more and more it passed within the rays
Of that high, bright, self-verifying flame.

Thence on far greater glory was my gaze
Than speech can tell; at that transcendent sight.
All memory fails and shrinks in blank amaze.

As one who dreams in visions of the night,
And when the dream is o'er, the sense imprest
Remains, nor sees the mind aught else aright,

So am I; for nigh all that vision blest
Has passed away, and yet its bliss is felt.
Distilling all its sweetness through my breast.

So doth the snow before the sunbeams melt;
So to the winds on leaves all borne astray
Was tost the speech in which the Sibyl dealt.

Light Supreme, that dwellest far away
From mortal thoughts, grant Thou this soul of mine
Some scant revival of that great display.

And to my tongue give Thou such strength divine,
That of Thy glory at the least one beam
May to the race to come in beauty shine.

That, as I call to mind some little gleam.
And some faint echo sounds in this my song.
Men of Thy victory will more truly deem.

I trow that so I suffered from the strong
And vivid light, that I as lost had been,
If from it these mine eyes had turned for long;

And I remember how I grew more keen
By this to bear it, so that I did blend
My gaze with Might to which no end is seen.

O grace abounding, which to me did lend
Courage to look upon that Light eterne,
Yea, all my power of sight thereon to spend!

In its abysmal depths mine eye did learn,
Bound in one volume with the Love divine,
The law on which the universe doth turn:

Substance and accident and modes combine,
All blent together in such order due,
That what I tell as simple light doth shine.

The universal form, I deem, I knew.
Of this great complex Whole, since greater joy,
As I say this, pervades me through and through.

A moment there more memory did destroy
Than all the ages, five beyond the score,
Since Neptune saw the Argo's shade flit by.

Thus stayed my mind, still gazing o'er and o'er.
With fixed and immovable attent.
And, as it gazed, was kindled more and more.

Before that Light one grows to such content
That to turn back from it to aught beside
The soul can never possibly consent;

Seeing that the good, by which is satisfied
Our will, is centred there; outside that rest,
Defect attends what perfect there doth bide.

Now shall my speech more briefly be comprest.
Compared with my remembrance, than is seen
The babe's who bathes his lips upon the breast.

Not because more than one pure form serene
Was in the living Light I gazed upon,
Which ever is what It hath ever been,

But through the sight, which greater force had won
In me by gazing, one Form met mine eye
Still varying as I changed, yet ever One;

In the profound bright substance seen on high"
Of that clear light three circles seemed to glow
Of threefold colour, knit in unity;

And as one rainbow by another,
This was by that reflected, while the third
As fire appeared that from them both did flow.

Ah me I how brief and stammering now is heard
All speech compared with thought, and that to this
I saw is such that " small " is scarce the word.

O Light Eternal, who, of all that is,
Dwell'st in Thyself, and know'st Thyself alone,
And knowing, lov'st Thyself, Thyself thy bliss!

That interpenetration which, as shown,
Appeared in Thee as 'twere reflected light,
As on mine eyes in measure faint it shone.

Within itself, in its own radiance bright,
Seemed to me to present our image clear.
Wherefore upon it full fixed was my sight.

As doth the expert geometer appear,
Who seeks to square the circle, and whose skill
Finds not the law by which his course to steer,

So was I, as that sight my soul did fill:
Fain would I see that form in circle set,
And how, within, it found its true place still;

But for that task my wings were feeble yet.
Only my mind was stricken through and through,
As by a flash that all my yearning met.

Strength failed that lofty vision to pursue;
But now, as whirls a wheel with nought to jar.
Desire and will were swayed in order due

By Love, that moves the sun and every star.