O ye proud Christians! wretched, weary ones!
Who, in the vision of the mind infirm,
Confidence have in your backsliding steps,
Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?
Wherefore your spirit doth it float on high?
Like are ye unto insects undeveloped,
Even as the worm in which formation fails!
As to sustain a ceiling or a roof,

In place of corbel, oftentimes a figure
Is seen to join its knees unto its breast,
Which makes of the unreal real anguish

Arise in him who sees it; fashioned thus Beheld I those, when I had ta'en good heed. True is it, they were more or less bent down,

According as they more or less were laden; And he who had most patience in his looks Weeping did seem to say, "I can no more!"

Line 127. Why floats aloft your spirit high in air?

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CANTO XI

"OUR Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens,
Not circumscribed, but from the greater love
Thou bearest to the first effects on high,
Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence
By every creature, as befitting is

To render thanks to thy sweet effluence.
Come unto us the peace of thy dominion,

For unto it we cannot of ourselves, If it come not, with all our intellect. Even as thine own Angels of their will

Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing,
So may all men make sacrifice of theirs.
Give unto us this day our daily manna,

Withouten which in this rough wilderness
Backward goes he who toils most to advance.
And even as we the trespass we have suffered
Pardon in one another, pardon thou
Benignly, and regard not our desert.
Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome,
Put not to proof with the old Adversary,
But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver.

This last petition verily, dear Lord,

Not for ourselves is made, who need it not,
But for their sake who have remained behind us."
Thus for themselves and us good furtherance

Those shades imploring, went beneath a weight
Like unto that of which we sometimes dream,

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