Dante Alighieri - Paradiso (Canto 1- Durling) lyrics

The glory of Him who moves all things penetrates through the universe and shines forth in one place more and less elsewhere. In the heaven that receives most of his light have I been, and I have seen things that one who comes down from there cannot remember and cannot utter, for as it draws near to its desire, our intellect goes so deep that the memory cannot follow it. Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom as I was able to treasure up in my mind will now become the matter of my song. O good Apollo, for this last labor make me such a vessel for your power as you require to bestow the beloved laurel. Until now one peak of Parna**us has been enough for me, but now with both of them I must enter upon what of the field remains: come into my breast and breathe there, as when you drew Marsyas forth from the sheath of his members. O divine power, if you lend so much of yourself to me that I may make manifest the shadow of the blessed kingdom that is stamped within my head, you will see me come to the foot of your beloved tree, and crown myself with the leaves of which the subject and you will make me worthy. So seldom, Father, are they gathered for the triumph of emperor or poet--such is the guilt and shame of human desires-- that the Peneian leaf should give birth to gladness in the happy Delphic deity, when it makes any one thirst for it. A tiny spark can result in a great flame: perhaps, following after me, with better voices, other will pray so that Cyrrha will reply. The lantern of the world rises to mortals through divers outlets, but from the one that joins four circles with three crosses it comes forth with better course and joined to better stars, and it tempers and seals the waxy world more to its manner. Such an outlet, or one near it, had made morning there, and evening here, and there the hemisphere was all white, and this one black, when I saw Beatrice turned to her left and looking into the sun: eagle never fixed its sight there so. And as a second ray will spring forth from a first, mounting upward like a pilgrim that wishes to return home: so my act patterned itself on hers, infused through my eyes into my imagination, and I fixed my eyes on the sun beyond our won't. Much is permitted there that is not permitted to our faculties here, thanks to the place,created to be the home of the human race. I did not endure it long, nor yet so little that I did not see it emitting sparks all around, like iron come forth boiling from the fire, and suddenly day seemed to be added to day, as if the Almighty had adorned the sky with another sun. Beatrice was all fixed on the eternal wheels with her eyes, and I fixed my eyes on her, removing them from the heights. Gazing at her I became within what Glaucus became tasting the herb that made him a consort of the other gods in the sea. To signify transhumanizing per verba is impossible; therefore let the comparison suffice for those to whom grace reserves the experience. If I was solely that part of me which you created last, O Love who govern the heavens, you know, for you raised me up with your light. When the wheeling that you make sempiternal, by being desired, drew my attention with the harmony that you temper and distinguish, so much of the sky seemed to be on fire with the flame of the sun then, that rain or river never made so extended a lake. The wonder of the sound and the great light kindled a desire in me to know their cause, never before felt with such sharpness. Therefore she, who saw me as I do myself, in order to quiet my laboring spirit, before I could ask opened her lips and began: "You are making yourself swell with false imagining, so that you do not see what shaking it off would show. You are not on earth as you believe, but lightning, fleeing its proper place, never sped so fast as you, going back to yours." If I was divested of my first doubt by her smiling brief words, I was tangled even more in a new one, and I said: "Satisfied just now, requievi from great wonder, but now I marvel how I can rise up through these light bodies." Wherefore she, after a pitying sigh, directed her eyes at me with the expression that a mother has over a delirious child, and began; "All things whatsoever have order among themselves, and this is a form that makes the universe resemble God. here the high creatures see the footprint of the eternal Worth, the end to which is created the order just touched upon. In the order of which I speak, all natures incline in their divers lots, closer to their origin or more distant from it; thus they move toward different ports over the great sea of being, each with an instinct given it to carry it. This carries fire on up toward the moon, this is the driving force in mortal hearts, this compresses and unites the earth; nor does this bow propel on the creatures deprived of intelligence, but also those that have intelligence and love. The Providence that sets all this in order ever stills with its light the heaven where that other revolves that has the greatest haste; and now thither, as to a decreed goal, we are carried by the power of that bowstring which aims toward a happy target all that it looses. It is true that, just as form often does not accord with the intention of art, because the material is deaf to respond, so at times from this course the creature departs that has the power to swerve, so driven, in some other direction; and, just as one can see fire fall downward from a cloud, so the creature's first impetus drives it to earth, if deflected by false pleasure. You should not wonder at your ascent, if I judge well, otherwise than at a stream when from a high mountains it descends to the base. It would be a marvel in you if, free from impediment, you had remained below, as if, on earth, living fire should be motionless." Then she turned her eyes back toward the heavens.