When he who all the world illuminates Out of our hemisphere so far descends That on all sides the daylight is consumed, The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled, Doth suddenly reveal itself again By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.
And came into my mind this act of heaven, When the ensign of the world and of its leaders Had silent in the blessed beak become;
Because those living luminaries all, By far more luminous, did songs begin Lapsing and falling from my memory.
O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear, That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!
After the precious and pellucid crystals, With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld, Silence imposed on the angelic bells, I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river That clear descendeth down from rock to rock, Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck Taketh its form, and as upon the vent Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it, Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting, That murmuring of the eagle mounted up Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.
There it became a voice, and issued thence From out its beak, in such a form of words As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun In mortal eagles," it began to me, "Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;
For of the fires of which I make my figure, Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head Of all their orders the supremest are.
He who is shining in the midst as pupil Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit, Who bore the ark from city unto city;
Now knoweth he the merit of his song, In so far as effect of his own counsel, By the reward which is commensurate.
Of five, that make a circle for my brow, He that approacheth nearest to my beak Did the poor widow for her son console;
Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost Not following Christ, by the experience Of this sweet life and of its opposite.
He who comes next in the circumference Of which I speak, upon its highest arc, Did death postpone by penitence sincere;
Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.
The next who follows, with the laws and me, Under the good intent that bore bad fruit Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;
Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed.
And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest, Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;
Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is With a just king; and in the outward show Of his effulgence he reveals it still.
Who would believe, down in the errant world, That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?
Now knoweth he enough of what the world Has not the power to see of grace divine, Although his sight may not discern the bottom."