And she, even as a mother who straightway
  Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy
  With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,

Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
  And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
  And what is done here cometh from good zeal?

In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
  Already would be known to thee the vengeance
  Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.

The sword above here smiteth not in haste
  Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
  Who fearing or desiring waits for it.

As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
  And saw a hundred spherules that together
  With mutual rays each other more embellished.

I stood as one who in himself represses
  The point of his desire, and ventures not
  To question, he so feareth the too much.

Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
  Even as myself the charity that burns
  Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;

But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
  To the high end, I will make answer even
  Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.

And I am he who first up thither bore
  The name of Him who brought upon the earth
  The truth that so much sublimateth us.

And such abundant grace upon me shone
  That all the neighbouring towns I drew away
  From the impious worship that seduced the world.

Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
  Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters
  Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."

And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
  Speaking with me, and the good countenance
  Which I behold and note in all your ardours,

Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
  If I may so much grace receive, that I
  May thee behold with countenance unveiled."

He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
  In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
  Where are fulfilled all others and my own.

For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
  And unto it our stairway reaches up,
  Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.

Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
  Extending its supernal part, what time
  So thronged with angels it appeared to him. 

The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
  Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
  Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.

But heavy usury is not taken up
  So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
  Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;

The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
  That good beginnings down below suffice not
  From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.

Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
  And I with orison and abstinence,
  And Francis with humility his convent.

In verity the Jordan backward turned,
  And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
  A wonder to behold, than succour here."

Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
  To his own band, and the band closed together;
  Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.

Nor here below, where one goes up and down
  By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
  That it could be compared unto my wing.

Reader, as I may unto that devout
  Triumph return, on whose account I often
  For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,-- 

O glorious stars, O light impregnated
  With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
  All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,

With you was born, and hid himself with you,
  He who is father of all mortal life,
  When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;

To you devoutly at this hour my soul
  Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
  For the stern pass that draws it to itself.

"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
  Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now
  To have thine eves unclouded and acute;

So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,
  Present itself to the triumphant throng
  That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."

I with my sight returned through one and all
  The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
  Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;

I saw the daughter of Latona shining
  Without that shadow, which to me was cause
  That once I had believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
  Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
  Around and near him Maia and Dione.