Paradiso

Glory, from Him who moves all things that are,
penetrates the universe and then shines back,
reflected more in one part, less elsewhere.

High in that sphere which takes from Him most light
I was – I was! – and saw things there that no one
who descends knows how or ever can repeat.

For, drawing near to what it most desires,
our intellect so sinks into the deep
no memory can follow it that far.

‘Dear brother, we in will are brought to rest
by power of caritas that makes us will
no more than what we have, nor thirst for more.

Were our desire to be more highly placed,
all our desires would then be out of tune
with His, who knows and wills where we should be. […]

In formal terms, our being in beatitude
entails in-holding to the will of God,
our own wills thus made one with the divine.’

I see full well that human intellect
can never be content unless that truth
beyond which no truth soars shines down on it.

[…] Born of that will, there rise up, like fresh shoots,
pure doubts. These flourish at the foot of truth.
From height to height, they drive us to the peak.

This beckons me.

Between the last great night and first of days
there’s never been nor shall be, either way,
a process soaring, so magnificent.

For God, in giving of Himself to make
humanity sufficient to restore itself,
gave more than, granting pardon, He’d have done.

All other means, in justice, would have come
far short, had not the very Son of God
bowed humbly down to take on human flesh.

Yet here we don’t repent such things. We smile,
not, though, at sin – we don’t think back to that –
but at that Might that governs and provides.

In wonder, we here prize the art to which
His power brings beauty, and discern the good
through which the world above turns all below.

Call as I might on training, art or wit,
no words of mine could make the image seen.
Belief, though, may conceive it, eyes still long.

In us, imagination is too mean
for such great heights. And that’s no miracle.
For no eye ever went beyond the sun.

So shining there was that fourth family
that’s always fed by one exalted Sire
with sight of what He breathes, what Son He has.

The providence that rules the universe,
in counsels so profound that all created
countenance will yield before it finds its depth […]

ordained two princes that, on either side,
should walk along with [the Church] and be her guide.

The one was seraph-like in burning love,
the other in intelligence a splendour
on the earth that shone like Heaven’s cherubim.

[…] Their different actions served a single plan.

So too, like constellations in the depths
of Mars, these rays composed the honoured sign […]

And here remembering surpasses skill:
that cross, in sudden flaring, blazed out Christ
so I can find no fit comparison.

But those who take their cross and follow Christ
will let me off where, wearily, I fail,
seeing in that white dawn, as lightning, Christ.

Florence, within the ancient ring, from which
she takes the bell-sound still of terce and nones,
lived on in modesty, chasteness and peace. […]

I saw the Nerli and del Vecchio
content to wear the plainest skin and hide,
their women occupied with loom and flax.

How fortunate these were, each being sure
of where her grave would be!

[Y]ou’ll leave Florence, too.

[…] You’ll leave behind you all you hold most dear.
And this will be the grievous arrow barb
that exile, first of all, will shoot your way.

And you will taste the saltiness of bread
when offered by another’s hand – as, too,
how hard it is to climb a stranger’s stair.

For if at first your voice tastes odious,
still it will offer, as digestion works,
life-giving nutriment to those who eat.

The words you shout will be like blasts of wind
that strike the very summit of the trees.
And this will bring no small degree of fame.

For you’ve been shown in all these circling wheels –
around the mountain, in the sorrowing vale –
only those souls whose fame is widely known,
since those who hear you speak will never pause

or give belief to any instances
whose family roots are hidden or unknown,
nor demonstrations that remain obscure.

But see this: many cry out: “Christ! Christ! Christ!”
Yet many will, come Judgement, be to Him
less [close] than are those who don’t know Christ.

And Christians such as these the Ethiopian
will damn when souls divide between two schools,
some to eternal riches, some to dearth.

What will the Persians say about your kings,
when once they see that ledger opened up
in which is written all their praiseless doings.

‘And so you mortals, in your judgements show
restraint. For even we who look on God
do not yet know who all the chosen are.

Yet this deficiency for us is sweet.
For in this good our own good finds its goal,
that what God wills we likewise seek in will.’

So from that sacred sign was given me,
to bring to my short sight new clarity,
a gentle draught of soothing medicine.

As bolts of fire, unlocked from thunder clouds,
expand beyond containment in those bounds,
then fall to ground […]

so, too, surrounded by this solemn feast,
my own mind, grown the greater now, went forth
and can’t remember what it then became.

‘Open your eyes and look at what I am!
You have seen things by which you’re made so strong,
you can, now, bear to look upon my smile.’

My being, and the being of the world,
the death that He sustained so I might live,
the hope that all, with me, confess in faith,

the living knowledge I have spoken of –
all drew me from the waves of wrongful love
and set me on the shores of righteousness.

And every leaf, en-leafing all the grove
of our eternal orchardist,
I love as far as love is borne to them from Him.

We did not mean that some of Christ’s own race
should sit in favour on our heirs’ right hand,
and others, to the left, incur disgrace;

nor that the keys entrusted to my hands
should serve as battle emblem on the flag
that fought against those marked by baptism;

nor that, myself, I should become the stamp
that seals the sale of untrue privilege.
I flare and redden often at this thought.

Down there, in every pasture, ravening wolves
are seen dressed up as shepherds and as priests.
God our defence, why are you still unmoved?

The order in the natural spheres that stills
the central point and moves, round that, all else,
here sets its confine and begins its rule.

This primal sphere has no “where” other than
the mind of God. The love that makes it turn
is kindled there, so, too, the powers it rains.

Brightness and love contain it in one ring,
as this, in turn, contains the spheres below.
And only He who binds it knows the bond.

Grace, in all plenitude, you dared me set
my seeing eyes on that eternal light
so that all seeing there achieved its end.

Within in its depths, this light, I saw, contained,
bound up and gathered in a single book,
the leaves that scatter through the universe –

beings and accidents and modes of life,
as though blown all together in a way
that what I say is just a simple light.

But mine were wings that could not rise to that,
save that, with this, my mind, was stricken through
by sudden lightning bringing what it wished.

All powers of high imagining here failed.
But now my will and my desire were turned,
as wheels that move in equilibrium,
by love that moves the sun and other stars.