While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked
Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt,
And still solicitous of more delights,
In front of us like an enkindled fire

Became the air beneath the verdant boughs, And the sweet sound as singing now was heard. O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger,

Vigils, or cold for you I have endured,
The occasion spurs me their reward to claim !
Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me,

And with her choir Urania must assist me,
To put in verse things difficult to think.
A little farther on, seven trees of gold

In semblance the long space still intervening
Between ourselves and them did counterfeit;
But when I had approached so near to them
The common object, which the sense deceives,
Lost not by distance any of its marks,
The faculty that lends discourse to reason

Did apprehend that they were candlesticks, And in the voices of the song "Hosanna! Above them flamed the harness beautiful,

Far brighter than the moon in the serene Of midnight, at the middle of her month. I turned me round, with admiration filled,

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To good Virgilius, and he answered me With visage no less full of wonderment. Then back I turned my face to those high things, Which moved themselves towards us so sedately, They had been distanced by new-wedded brides. The lady chid me: "Why dost thou burn only 61 So with affection for the living lights,

And dost not look at what comes after them?"

Then saw I people, as behind their leaders,
Coming behind them, garmented in white,
And such a whiteness never was on earth.
The water on my left flank was resplendent,
And back to me reflected my left side,
E'en as a mirror, if I looked therein.
When I upon my margin had such post
That nothing but the stream divided us,
Better to see I gave my steps repose;
And I beheld the flamelets onward go,

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Leaving behind themselves the air depicted, And they of trailing pennons had the semblance, So that it overhead remained distinct

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With sevenfold lists, all of them of the colors Whence the sun's bow is made, and Delia's girdle.

These standards to the rearward longer were
Than was my sight; and, as it seemed to me, 80
Ten paces were the outermost apart.

Under so fair a heaven as I describe

The four and twenty Elders, two by two,
Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.

They all of them were singing: "Blessed thou
Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessed
Forevermore shall be thy loveliness."
After the flowers and other tender grasses

In front of me upon the other margin
Were disencumbered of that race elect,
Even as in heaven star followeth after star,
There came close after them four animals,
Incoronate each one with verdant leaf.
Plumed with six wings was every one of them,

The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of Argus

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If they were living would be such as these. Reader to trace their forms no more I waste My rhymes; for other spendings press me so, That I in this cannot be prodigal.

But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them

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As he beheld them from the region cold.
Coming with cloud, with whirlwind, and with

fire;

And such as thou shalt find them in his pages, Such were they here; saving that in their plum

age

John is with me, and differeth from him. 105 The interval between these four contained

A chariot triumphal on two wheels,

Which by a Griffin's neck came drawn along; And upward he extended both his wings

Between the middle list and three and three, 110 So that he injured none by cleaving it.

So high they rose that they were lost to sight;
His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird,
And white the others with vermilion mingled.
Not only Rome with no such splendid car
E'er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus,
But to it that of the Sun would be,
poor
That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt up
At the importunate orison of Earth,
When Jove was so mysteriously just.
Three maidens at the right wheel in a circle
Came onward dancing; one so very red
That in the fire she hardly had been noted.
The second was as if her flesh and bones
Had all been fashioned out of emerald;
The third appeared as snow but newly fallen.

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And now they seemed conducted by the white,
Now by the red, and from the song of her
The others took their step, or slow or swift.
Upon the left hand four made holiday

Vested in purple, following the measure
Of one of them with three eyes in her head.
In rear of all the group here treated of
Two old men I beheld, unlike in habit,
But like in gait, each dignified and grave.
One showed himself as one of the disciples
Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom nature
Made for the animals she holds most dear;
Contrary care the other manifested,

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With sword so shining and so sharp, it caused 140 Terror to me on this side of the river. Thereafter four I saw of humble aspect, And behind all an aged man alone Walking in sleep with countenance acute. And like the foremost company these seven Were habited; yet of the flower-de-luce No garland round about the head they wore, But of the rose, and other flowers vermilion ; At little distance would the sight have sworn That all were in a flame above their brows. And when the car was opposite to me

Thunder was heard; and all that folk august Seemed to have further progress interdicted, There with the vanward ensigns standing still.

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CANTO XXX.

When the Septentrion of the highest heaven
(Which never either setting knew or rising,

Nor veil of other cloud than that of sin, And which made every one therein aware Of his own duty, as the lower makes Whoever turns the helm to come to port) Motionless halted, the veracious people,

That came at first between it and the Griffin, Turned themselves to the car, as to their peace. And one of them, as if by Heaven commissioned, 10 Singing, "Veni, sponsa, de Libano "

Shouted three times, and all the others after. Even as the Blessed at the final summons

Shall rise up quickened each one from his cavern, Uplifting light the reinvested flesh,

So upon that celestial chariot

A hundred rose ad vocem tanti senis,

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Ministers and messengers of life eternal. They all were saying, "Benedictus qui venis," And, scattering flowers above and round about, 20 "Manibus o date lilia plenis."

Ere now have I beheld, as day began,

The eastern hemisphere all tinged with rose,

And the other heaven with fair serene adorned;

And the sun's face, uprising, overshadowed

So that by tempering influence of vapors
For a long interval the eye sustained it;
Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers

Which from those hands angelical ascended,
And downward fell again inside and out,
Over her snow-white veil with olive cinct
Appeared a lady under a green mantle,
Vested in color of the living flame.
And my own spirit, that already now

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So long a time had been, that in her presence 35