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;

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, 

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.

"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. 

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;

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.

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;

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." 

Such seemed to me the image of the imprint
  Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will
  Doth everything become the thing it is.

And notwithstanding to my doubt I was
  As glass is to the colour that invests it,
  To wait the time in silence it endured not,

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled
  The blessed standard made to me reply,
  To keep me not in wonderment suspended:

"I see that thou believest in these things
  Because I say them, but thou seest not how;
  So that, although believed in, they are hidden. 

'Regnum coelorum' suffereth violence
  From fervent love, and from that living hope
  That overcometh the Divine volition;

Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man,
  But conquers it because it will be conquered,
  And conquered conquers by benignity.

They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,
  Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith
  Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.

For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back
  Unto good will, returned unto his bones,
  And that of living hope was the reward, 

The glorious soul concerning which I speak,
  Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,
  Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire
  Of genuine love, that at the second death
  Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

Set all his love below on righteousness;
  Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose
  His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not
  From that day forth the stench of paganism,
  And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

O thou predestination, how remote
  Thy root is from the aspect of all those
  Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained
  In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,
  We do not know as yet all the elect;

After this manner by that shape divine,
  To make clear in me my short-sightedness,
  Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist
  Accompanies with vibrations of the chords,
  Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,