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| “O VIRGIN MOTHER, daughter of thy Son! | |
| Created beings all in lowliness | |
| Surpassing, as in height above them all; | |
| Term by the eternal counsel pre-ordain’d; | |
| Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced | 5 |
| In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn, | |
| To make Himself his own creation; | |
| For in thy womb rekindling shone the love | |
| Reveal’d, whose genial influence makes now | |
| This flower to germin in eternal peace: | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| To thee for aidance, fain would have desire | |
| Fly without wings. Not only him, who asks, | |
| Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft | |
| Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be | |
| Of excellence in creature, pity mild, | 20 |
| Relenting mercy, large munificence, | |
| Are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one, | |
| Who of all spirits hath review’d the state, | |
| From the world’s lowest gap unto this height. | |
| Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| Each cloud of his mortality away, | |
| Through thine own prayers, that on the sovran joy | |
| Unveil’d he gaze. This yet, I pray thee, Queen, | |
| Who canst do what thou wilt; that in him thou | |
| Wouldst, after all he hath beheld, preserve | 35 |
| Affection sound, and human passions quell. | |
| Lo! where, with Beatrice, many a saint | |
| Stretch their clasp’d hands, in furtherance of my suit.” | |
| The eyes, that Heaven with love and awe regards, | |
| Fix’d on the suitor, witness’d, how benign | 40 |
| She looks on pious prayers: then fasten’d they | |
| On the everlasting light, wherein no eye | |
| Of creature, as may well be thought, so far | |
| Can travel inward. I, meanwhile, who drew | |
| Near to the limit, where all wishes end, | 45 |
| The ardour of my wish (for so behoved) | |
| Ended within me. Beckoning smiled the sage, | |
| That I should look aloft: but, ere he bade, | |
| Already of myself aloft I look’d; | |
| For visual strength, refining more and more, | 50 |
| Bare me into the ray authentical | |
| Of sovran light. Thenceforward, what I 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 awaken’d, straight, | 55 |
| All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains | |
| Impression of the feeling in his dream; | |
| E’en such am I: for all the vision dies, | |
| As ’twere, away; and yet the sense of sweet, | |
| That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart. | 60 |
| Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal’d; | |
| Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost | |
| The Sibyl’s sentence. O eternal beam! [soar?] | |
| (Whose height what reach of mortal thought may | |
| Yield me again some little particle | 65 |
| 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 | 70 |
| The record sound in this unequal strain. | |
| Such keenness from the living ray I met, | |
| That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, methinks, | |
| I had been lost; but, so embolden’d, on | |
| I pass’d, as I remember, till my view | 75 |
| Hover’d the brink of dread infinitude. | |
| O grace, unenvying of Thy boon! that gavest | |
| Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken | |
| On the everlasting splendour, that I look’d, | |
| While sight was unconsumed, and, in that depth, | 80 |
| Saw in one volume clasp’d of love, whate’er | |
| The universe unfolds; all properties | |
| Of substance and of accident, beheld, | |
| Compounded, yet one individual light | |
| The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw | 85 |
| The universal form; for that whene’er | |
| I do but speak of it, my soul dilates | |
| Beyond her proper self; and, till I speak, | |
| One moment seems a longer lethargy, | |
| Than five-and-twenty ages had appear’d | 90 |
| To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder | |
| At Argo’s shadow darkening on his flood. | |
| With fixed heed, suspense and motionless, | |
| Wondering I gazed; and admiration still | |
| Was kindled as I gazed. It may not be, | 95 |
| 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 summ’d; and all, elsewhere defective found, | |
| Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more | 100 |
| E’en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe’s | |
| That yet is moisten’d at his mother’s breast. | |
| Not that the semblance of the living light | |
| Was changed, (that ever as at first remain’d), | |
| But that my vision quickening, in that sole | 105 |
| Appearance, still new miracles descried, | |
| And toil’d me with the change. In that abyss | |
| Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem’d, methought, | |
| Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound: 1 | |
| And, from another, one reflected seem’d, | 110 |
| As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third | |
| Seem’d fire, breathed equally from both. O speech! | |
| How feeble and how faint art thou, to give | |
| Conception birth. Yet this to what I saw | |
| Is less than little. O eternal Light! | 115 |
| Sole in Thyself that dwell’st; and of Thyself | |
| Sole understood, past, present, or to come; | |
| Thou smiledst, on that circling, 2 which in Thee | |
| Seem’d as reflected splendour, while I mused; | |
| For I therein, methought, in its own hue | 120 |
| Beheld our image painted: steadfastly | |
| I 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, | 125 |
| Finds not: e’en such was I, 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 my wing; | |
| Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, | 130 |
| And, in the spleen, unfolded what it sought. | |
| Here vigour fail’d the towering fantasy: | |
| But yet the will roll’d onward, like a wheel | |
| In even motion, by the Love impell’d, | |
| That moves the sun in Heaven and all the stars. | 135 |
