O virgin mother, daughter of thy Son, created beings all in lowliness surpassing, as in height, above them all, term by the eternal counsel preordained, ennobler of thy nature, so advanced in thee, that its great Maker did not scorn, himself, in his own work enclosed to dwell. For in thy womb rekindling shone the love revealed, whose genial influence makes now this flower to germin in eternal peace. Here thou to us, of charity and love, art, as the noon-day torch, and art, beneath, to mortal men, of hope a living spring. So mighty art thou, lady, and so great, that he who grace desireth, and comes not to thee for aidance, fain would have desire fly without wings. Nor only him who asks, thy bounty succours, but doth freely oft forerun the asking. Whatsoe'er may be of excellence in creature, pity mild, relenting mercy, large munificence, are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one, who of all spirits hath reviewed the state, from the world's lowest gap unto this height. Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace for virtue, yet more high to lift his ken toward the bliss supreme. And I, who ne'er coveted sight, more fondly, for myself, than now for him, my prayers to thee prefer, and pray they be not scant, that thou wouldst drive each cloud of his mortality away, that on the sovran pleasure he may gaze. This also I entreat of thee, O queen, who canst do what thou wilt, that in him thou wouldst after all he hath beheld, preserve affection sound, and human passions quell. Lo, where, with Beatrice, many a saint stretch their clasped hands, in furtherance of my suit. The eyes, that heaven with love and awe regards, fixed on the suitor, witnessed how benign she looks on pious prayers, then fastened they on the everlasting light, wherein no eye of creature, as may well be thought, so far can travel inward.
Dante, meanwhile, who drew near to the limit where all wishes end, the ardour of his wish, for so behooved, ended within him. Beckoning smiled the sage, that he should look aloft, but, ere he bade, already of himself aloft he looked, for visual strength, refining more and more, bare him into the ray authentical of sovran light. Thenceforward, what he saw, was not for words to speak, nor memory's self to stand against such outrage on her skill. As one, who from a dream awakened, straight, all he hath seen forgets, yet still retains impression of the feeling in his dream, even such is he, for all the vision dies, as it were, away, and yet the sense of sweet, that sprang from it, still trickles in his heart. Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unsealed. Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost the Sibyl's sentence. O eternal beam, whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar, yield me again some little particle of what thou then appearedst, give my tongue power, but to leave one sparkle of thy glory, unto the race to come, that shall not lose thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught of memory in me, and endure to hear the record sound in this unequal strain. Such keenness from the living ray he met, that, if his eyes had turned away, methinks, he had been lost, but, so emboldened, on he passed, as he remembers, till his view hovered the brink of dread infinitude. O grace, unenvying of thy boon, that gavest boldness to fix so earnestly his ken on the everlasting splendour, that he looked, while sight was unconsumed, and, in that depth, saw in one volume clasped of love, whatever the universe unfolds, all properties of substance and of accident, beheld, compounded, yet one individual light the whole. And of such bond methinks he saw the universal form, for that whenever he does but speak of it, his soul dilates beyond her proper self, and, till he speak, one moment seems a longer lethargy than five-and-twenty ages had appeared to that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder at Argo's shadow darkening on his flood.
With fixed heed, suspense and motionless, wondering he gazed, and admiration still was kindled, as he gazed. It may not be, that one who looks upon that light, can turn to other object, willingly, his view. For all the good, that will may covet, there is summed, and all, elsewhere defective found, complete. His tongue shall utter now, no more even what remembrance keeps, than could the babe's that yet is moistened at his mother's breast. Not that the semblance of the living light was changed, that ever as at first remained, but that his vision quickening, in that sole appearance, still new miracles descried, and toiled him with the change. In that abyss of radiance, clear and lofty, seemed methought, three orbs of triple hue clipt in one bound, and, from another, one reflected seemed, as rainbow is from rainbow, and the third seemed fire, breathed equally from both. Oh speech how feeble and how faint art thou, to give conception birth. Yet this to what he saw is less than little. Oh eternal light, sole in thyself that dwellst, and of thyself sole understood, past, present, or to come. Thou smiledst, on that circling, which in thee seemed as reflected splendour, while he mused, for he therein, methought, in its own hue beheld our image painted. Steadfastly he therefore pored upon the view. As one who versed in geometric lore, would fain measure the circle, and, though pondering long and deeply, that beginning, which he needs, finds not, even such was he, intent to scan the novel wonder, and trace out the form, how to the circle fitted, and therein how placed. But the flight was not for his wing, had not a flash darted athwart his mind, and in the spleen unfolded what it sought. Here vigour failed the towering fantasy. But yet the will rolled onward, like a wheel in even motion, by the Love impelled, that moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.
