Paradiso: Canto XXXIII

"Virgin mother, daughter of thy son, lowly and uplifted more than any creature, fixed goal of the eternal counsel,

thou art she who didst human nature so ennoble that its own Maker scorned not to become its making.

In thy womb was lit again the love under whose warmth in the eternal peace this flower hath thus unfolded.

Here art thou unto us the meridian torch of love and there below with mortals art a living spring of hope.

Lady thou art so great and hast such worth, that if there be who would have grace yet betaketh not himself to thee, his longing seeketh to fly without wings.

Thy kindliness not only succoureth whoso requesteth, but doth oftentimes freely forerun request.

In thee is tenderness, in thee is pity, in thee munificence, in thee united whatever in created being is of excellence.

Now he who from the deepest pool of the universe even to here hath seen the spirit lives one after one

imploreth thee, of grace, for so much power as to be able to uplift his eyes more high towards final bliss;

and I, who never burned for my own vision more than I do for his, proffer thee all my prayers and pray they be not scant

that thou do scatter for him every cloud of his mortality with prayers of thine, so that the joy supreme may be unfolded to him.

And further do I pray thee, Queen who can'st all that thou wilt, that thou keep sound for him, after so great a vision, his affections.

Let thy protection vanquish human ferments; see Beatrice, with how many Saints, for my prayers folding hands,"

Those eyes, of God beloved and venerated, fixed upon him who prayed, showed us how greatly devout prayers please her.

Then to the eternal light they bent themselves, wherein we may not ween that any creature's eye findeth its way so clear.

And I, who to the goal of all my longings was drawing nigh, even as was meet the ardour of the yearning quenched within me.

Bernard gave me the sign and smiled to me that I should look on high, but I already of myself was such as he would have me;

because my sight, becoming purged, now more and more was entering through the ray of the deep light which in itself is true.

Thence forward was my vision mightier than our discourse, which faileth at such sight, and faileth memory at so great outrage.

As is he who dreaming seeth, and when the dream is gone the passion stamped remaineth, and nought else cometh to the mind again;

even such am I; for almost wholly faileth me my vision, yet doth the sweetness that was born of it still drop within my heart.

So doth the snow unstamp it to the sun, so to the wind on the light leaves was lost the Sybil's wisdom.

O light supreme who so far dost uplift thee o'er mortal thoughts, re-lend unto my mind a little of what then thou didst seem,

and give my tongue such power that it may leave only a single sparkle of thy glory unto the folk to come;

for by returning to my memory somewhat, and by a little sounding in these verses, more of thy victory will be conceived.

I hold that by the keenness of the living ray which I endured I had been lost, had mine eyes turned aside from it.

And so I was the bolder, as I mind me, so long to sustain it as to unite my glance with the Worth infinite.

Oh grace abounding, wherein I presumed to fix my look on the eternal light so long that I consumed my sight thereon '

Within its depths I saw ingathered, bound by love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the universe;

substance and accidents and their relations, as though together fused, after such fashion that what I tell of is one simple flame.

The universal form of this complex I think that I beheld, because more largely, as I say this, I feel that I rejoice.

A single moment maketh a deeper lethargy for me than twenty and five centuries have wrought on the emprise that erst threw Neptune in amaze at Argo's shadow.

Thus all suspended did my mind gaze fixed, immovable, intent, ever enkindled by its gazing.

Such at that light doth man become that to turn thence to any other sight could not by possibility be ever yielded.

For the good, which is the object of the will, is therein wholly gathered, and outside it that same thing is defective which therein is perfect.

Now shall my speech fall farther short even of what I can remember than an infant's who still bathes his tongue at breast.

Not that more than a single semblance was in the living light whereon I looked, which ever is such as it was before;

but by the sight that gathered strength in me one sole appearance even as I changed worked on my gaze.

In the profound and shining being of the deep light appeared to me three circles, of three colours and one magnitude;

one by the second as Iris by Iris seemed reflected, and the third seemed a fire breathed equally from one and from the other.

Oh but how scant the utterance, and how faint, to my conceit! and it, to what I saw, is such that it sufficeth not to call it little.

O Light eternal who only in thyself abidest, only thyself dost understand, and to thyself, self-understood self-understanding, turnest love and smiling!

That circling which appeared in thee to be conceived as a reflected light, by mine eyes scanned some little,

in itself, of its own colour, seemed to be painted with our effigy, and thereat my sight was all committed to it.

As the geometer who all sets himself to measure the circle and who findeth not, think as he may, the principle he lacketh;

such was I at this new seen spectacle; I would perceive how the image consorteth with the circle, and how it settleth there;

but not for this were my proper wings, save that my mind was smitten by a flash wherein its will came to it.

To the high fantasy here power failed; but already my desire and will were rolled — even as a wheel that moveth equally — by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.