To make himself his own creation1;
For in thy womb rekindling shone the love
Reveal'd, whose genial influence makes now
This flower to germin in eternal peace :
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
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire 2
Fly without wings. Not only him, who asks,
Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft
Forerun the asking. Whatso'er may be
Of excellence in creature, pity mild,
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
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
Each cloud of his mortality away,

Through thine own prayers3, 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

1 To make himself his own creation.]

Non si sdegnò di farsi sua fattura.

I had translated this line,

Himself in his own work enclosed to dwell,

"In

and have corrected it at the suggestion of my friend, the Rev. William Digby, who points out a parallel passage in Bishop Hopkins, on the Lord's Prayer. Ed. 1692. p. 190. Him omnipotence became weak; eternity, mortal; innocence itself, guilty; God, man; the creator, a creature; the maker of all, his own workmanship."

2 Desire.]

Lo his desire woll flie withouten winges.

Chaucer, Troilus and Cresseide, lib. iii.

Che'l desiderio sempre move l'ale

Dietro all' oggetto della mente appreso.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir, lib. lii.

cap. 3.

3 Through thine own prayers.] Here again I am indebted to Mr. Digby for noticing the omission of "co' prieghi tuoi" in my former translation of the passage which stood thus: That on the sovran pleasure he may gaze. This also I entreat of thee, O queen.

[suit."

Affection sound, and human passions quell.
Lo! where, with Beatrice, many a saint
Stretch their clasp'd hands, in furtherance of my
The eyes, that heaven with love and awe regards,
Fix'd on the suitor, witness'd, how benign
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,
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,
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,
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 't were, away; and yet the sense of sweet,
That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart.
Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal'd;
Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost
The Sibyl's sentence1. O eternal beam! [soar ?)
(Whose height what reach of mortal thought may
Yield me again some little particle

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
The record sound in this unequal strain.
Such keenness 2 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
Hover'd the brink of dread infinitude.

O grace, unenvying of thy boon! that gavest

1 The Sibyl's sentence.] Virg. Æn. iii. 445.

2 Such keenness.]

th' air

No where so clear, sharpen'd his visual ray,
To objects distant far.

Milton, P. L. b. iii. 621.

Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken

On the everlasting splendour, that I look'd,
While sight was unconsumed; and, in that depth,
Saw in one volume clasp'd of love, whate'er
The universe unfolds; all properties1
Of substance and of accident, beheld,
Compounded, yet one individual light

The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw
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

To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder
At Argo's shadow3 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,
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
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)

1 All properties.] Thus in the Parmenides of Plato, it is argued that all conceivable quantities and qualities, however contradictory, are necessarily inherent in our idea of a universe or unity.

2 One moment.] "A moment seems to me more tedious, than five-and-twenty ages would have appeared to the Argonauts, when they had resolved on their expedition." Lombardi proposes a new interpretation of this difficult passage, and would understand our author to say that "one moment elapsed after the vision, occasioned a greater forgetfulness of what he had seen, than the five-and-twenty centuries, which past between the Argonautic expedition and the time of his writing this poem, had caused oblivion of the circumstances attendant on that event."

3 Argo's shadow.]

Que simul ac rostro ventosum proscidit æquor,
Tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda,
Emerseri feri candenti e gurgite vultus
Equoreæ monstrum Nereïdes admirantes.

Catullus, De Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 15.

The wondred Argo, which in wondrous piece

First through the Euxine seas bore all the flower of Greece Spenser, Faery Queen. b. ii. c. 12. st. 44.

But that my vision quickening, in that sole
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 bound1:
And, from another, one reflected seem'd,

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 little2. O eternal light!
Sole in thyself that dwell'st; and of thyself
Sole understood, past, present, or to come;
Thou smiledst3, on that circling 4, which in thee
Seem'd as reflected splendour, while I mused;
For I therein, methought, in its own hue
Beheld our image painted: stedfastly
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,
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,
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.

1Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound.] The Trinity. This passage may be compared to what Plato, in his second Epistle, enigmatically says of a first, second, and third, and of the impossibility that the human soul should attain to what it desires to know of them, by means of any thing akin to itself.

2 Less than little.]

Che 'l pavon vi parrebbe men che poco.

Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo. 1. ii. cap. 5. 3 Thou smiledst.] Some MSS. and editions instead of "intendente te a me arridi," have "intendente te ami ed arridi," who, understanding thyself, lovest and enjoyest thyself;" which Lombardi thinks much preferable.

That circling.] The second of the circles, "Light of Light," in which he dimly beheld the mystery of the incarnation.

THE END.

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES,

EITHER EXPRESSLY MENTIONED, OR SUPPOSED TO BE REFERRED
TO, IN THE PRECEDING POEM.