| |
| NOON’S fervid hour perchance six thousand miles 1 | |
| From hence is distant; and the shadowy cone | |
| Almost to level on our earth declines; | |
| When, from the midmost of this blue abyss, | |
| By turns some star is to our vision lost. | 5 |
| And straightway as the handmaid of the sun | |
| Puts forth her radiant brow, all, light by light, | |
| Fade; and the spangled firmament shuts in, | |
| E’en to the loveliest of the glittering throng. | |
| Thus vanish’d gradually from my sight | 10 |
| The triumph, which plays ever round the point, | |
| That overcame me, seeming (for it did) | |
| Engirt 2 by that it girdeth. Wherefore love, | |
| With loss of other object, forced me bend | |
| Mine eyes on Beatrice once again. | 15 |
| If all, that hitherto is told of her, | |
| Were in one praise concluded, ’twere too weak | |
| To furnish out this turn. Mine eyes did look | |
| On beauty, such, as I believe in sooth, | |
| Not merely to exceed our human; but, | 20 |
| That save its Maker, none can to the full | |
| Enjoy it. At this point o’erpower’d I fail; | |
| Unequal to my theme; as never bard | |
| Of buskin or of sock hath fail’d before. | |
| For as the sun doth to the feeblest sight, | 25 |
| E’en so remembrance of that witching smile | |
| Hath dispossest my spirit of itself. | |
| Not from that day, when on this earth I first | |
| Beheld her charms, up to that view of them, | |
| Have I with song applausive ever ceased | 30 |
| To follow; but now follow them no more; | |
| My course here bounded, as each artist’s is, | |
| When it doth touch the limit of his skill. | |
| She (such as I bequeath her to the bruit | |
| Of louder trump than mine, which hasteneth on | 35 |
| Urging its arduous matter to the close) | |
| Her words resumed, in gesture and in voice | |
| Resembling one accustom’d to command: | |
| “Forth 3 from the last corporeal are we come | |
| Into the Heaven, that is unbodied light; | 40 |
| Light intellectual, replete with love; | |
| Love of true happiness, replete with joy; | |
| Joy, that transcends all sweetness of delight. | |
| Here shalt thou look on either mighty host 4 | |
| Of Paradise; and one in that array, | 45 |
| Which in the final judgment thou shalt see.” | |
| As when the lightning, in a sudden spleen | |
| Unfolded, dashes from the blinding eyes | |
| The visive spirits, dazzled and bedimm’d; | |
| So, round about me, fulminating streams | 50 |
| Of living radiance play’d, and left me swathed | |
| And veiled in dense impenetrable blaze. | |
| Such weal is in the love, that stills this heaven; | |
| For its own flame 5 the torch thus fitting ever. | |
| No sooner to my listening ear had come | 55 |
| The brief assurance, than I understood | |
| New virtue into me infused, and sight | |
| Kindled afresh, with vigour to sustain | |
| Excess of light however pure. I look’d; | |
| And, in the likeness of a river, saw | 60 |
| Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves | |
| Flash’d up effulgence, as they glided on | |
| ’Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring, | |
| Incredible how fair: and, from the tide, | |
| There ever and anon, outstarting, flew | 65 |
| Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flowers | |
| Did set them, like to rubies, chased in gold: | |
| Then, as if drunk with odours, plunged again | |
| Into the wondrous flood; from which, as one | |
| Re-enter’d, still another rose. “The thirst | 70 |
| Of knowledge high, whereby thou art inflamed, | |
| To search the meaning of what here thou seest, | |
| The more it warms thee, pleases me the more, | |
| But first behoves thee of this water drink, | |
| Or e’er that longing be allay’d.” So spake | 75 |
| The day-star of mine eyes: then thus subjoin’d: | |
| “This stream; and these, forth issuing from its gulf, | |
| And diving back, a living topaz each; | |
| With all this laughter on its bloomy shores; | |
| Are but a preface, shadowy of the truth | 80 |
| They emblem: not that, in themselves, the things | |
| Are crude; but on thy part is the defect, | |
| For that thy views not yet aspire so high.” | |
| Never did babe, that had outslept his wont, | |
| Rush, which such eager straining, to the milk, | 85 |
| As I toward the water; bending me, | |
| To make the better mirrors of mine eyes | |
| In the refining wave: and as the eaves | |
| Of mine eyelids did drink of it, forthwith | |
| Seem’d it unto me turn’d from length to round. | 90 |
| Then as a troop of maskers, when they put | |
| Their vizors off, look other than before; | |
| The counterfeited semblance thrown aside: | |
| So into greater jubilee were changed | |
| Those flowers and sparkles; and distinct I saw, | 95 |
| Before me, either court of Heaven display’d. | |
| O prime enlightener! thou who gavest me strength | |
| On the high triumph of Thy realm to gaze; | |
| Grant virtue not to utter what I kenn’d. | |
| There is in Heaven a light, whose goodly shine | 100 |
| Makes the Creator visible to all | |
| Created, that in seeing Him alone | |
| Have peace; and in a circle spreads so far, | |
| That the circumference were too loose a zone | |
| To girdle in the sun. All is one beam, | 105 |
| Reflected from the summit of the first, | |
| That moves, which being hence and vigour takes. | |
| And as some cliff, that from the bottom eyes | |
| His image mirror’d in the crystal flood, | |
| As if to admire his brave apparelling | 110 |
| Of verdure and of flowers; so, round about, | |
| Eying the light, on more than million thrones, | |
| Stood, eminent, whatever from our earth | |
| Has to the skies return’d. How wide the leaves, | |
| Extended to their utmost, of this rose, | 115 |
| Whose lowest step embosoms such a space | |
| Of ample radiance! Yet, nor amplitude | |
| Nor height impeded, but my view with ease | |
| Took in the full dimensions of that joy. | |
| Near or remote, what there avails, where God | 120 |
| Immediate rules, and Nature, awed, suspends | |
| Her sway? Into the yellow of the rose | |
| Perennial, which, in bright expansiveness, | |
| Lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent | |
| Of praises to the never-wintering sun, | 125 |
| As one, who fain would speak yet holds his peace, | |
| Beatrice led me; and, “Behold,” she said, | |
| “This fair assemblage; stoles of snowy white, | |
| How numberless. The city, where we dwell, | |
| Behold how vast; and these our seats so throng’d, | 130 |
| Few now are wanting here. In that proud stall, | |
| On which, the crown, already o’er its state | |
| Suspended, holds thine eyes—or e’er thyself | |
| Mayst at the wedding sup—shall rest the soul | |
| Of the great Harry, 6 he who, by the world | 135 |
| Augustus hail’d, to Italy must come, | |
| Before her day be ripe. But ye are sick, | |
| And in your tetchy wantonness as blind, | |
| As is the bantling, that of hunger dies, | |
| And drives away the nurse. Nor may it be, | 140 |
| That he, 7 who in the sacred forum sways, | |
| Openly or in secret, shall with him | |
| Accordant walk: whom God will not endure | |
| I’ the holy office long; but thrust him down | |
| To Simon Magus, where Alagna’s priest 8 | 145 |
| Will sink beneath him: such will be his meed.” | |
