I LIFT mine eyes, and all the windows blaze With forms of Saints and holy men who died, And the great Rose upon its leaves displays With splendour upon splendour multiplied ; No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love And benedictions of the Holy Ghost; And the melodious bells among the spires O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above PARADISO. CANTO I. THE glory of Him who moveth everything Our intellect ingulphs itself so far, That after it the memory cannot go. Truly whatever of the holy realm I had the power to treasure in my mind O good Apollo, for this last emprise Make of me such a vessel of thy power One summit of Parnassus hitherto Has been enough for me, but now with both Enter into my bosom, thou, and breathe As at the time when Marsyas thou didst draw Thou'lt see me come unto thy darling tree, And crown myself thereafter with those leaves Of which the theme and thou shall make me worthy. So seldom, Father, do we gather them For triumph or of Cæsar or of Poet, The fault and shame of human inclinations,) That the Peneian foliage should bring forth When any one it makes to thirst for it. Shall prayer be made that Cyrrha may respond! To mortal men by passages diverse Uprises the world's lamp; but by that one Which circles four uniteth with three crosses, With better course and with a better star Conjoined it issues, and the mundane wax Tempers and stamps more after its own fashion. Almost that passage had made morning there And evening here, and there was wholly white I saw turned round, and gazing at the sun; And even as a second ray is wont To issue from the first and reascend, Thus of her action, through the eyes infused And sunward fixed mine eyes beyond our wont. There much is lawful which is here unlawful Unto our powers, by virtue of the place Not long I bore it, nor so little while But I beheld it sparkle round about And suddenly it seemed that day to day Was added, as if He who has the power With eyes upon the everlasting wheels Stood Beatrice all intent, and I, on her Such at her aspect inwardly became As Glaucus, tasting of the herb that made him To represent transhumanise in words Impossible were; the example, then, suffice If I was merely what of me thou newly Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light! |