DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 23

Chapter 23: The Fixed Stars

As mother bird among the leaves she loves

nests  all night long upon her brood of chicks

then wakes to watch the sky for dawn of day        3

when she will fly to seek their nourishment

            to fill each gaping beak: so Beatrice

            stood gazing at the height of firmament                  6

where the sun seems to move most slow. I saw

            she looked for something new and good: what thing

            I did not know till suddenly the sky                        9

was glorified by splendour flooding in.

            She cried, “O see the host of souls Christ won!     

His harvest from the virtues of the spheres!”         12

I can’t find words for the serenity

            of bliss we both enjoyed at what appeared.

As in a deep blue night the full round moon          15

outshines a myriad of stars, I saw

            a thousand thousand lights kindled by One,

            not only greater far than they combined,                18

but shining through them, lighting up all else.

            With failing sense I heard my dear love say

            “None can resist if they are overwhelmed              21

before the open gates of Paradise.”

            As lightning vanishes into the earth          

my mind was so transported, overcome                 24

I do not know a thing of what came next

until I heard, “Open your eyes, my dear!  

have they gained strength to let you see me smile?” 27

Like waking from a dream I can’t recall

            I faintly heard these words, then heard them clear

with gratitude I never will forget.                           30      

As to her smile, if Polyhymnia

            muse of sacred song, and all her sisters

of poetic art joined with me to help,                       33

  

I could not say a thousandth fraction of

            how her smile lit this part of Paradise.

My verse must leap forward upon this road.          36

Reader, think of my theme! One mortal man

            carries that load. Forgive me staggering.   

This journey needs a ship with daring prow          39

cleaving the ocean waves and captain who,

though weak at times, will never spare himself.

“My face should not be so enchanting that             42

it blinds you to the loveliest flowers

            in garden ever lit by Christian light,”                    

said Beatrice. “Look at the Word of God               45

embodied in a rose! Virgin Mary,

Queen of Paradise, beside twelve lilies –              

            twelve apostles whose scent should draw us all     48

onto the path of truth.” I turned to look.

            Sometimes upon a day darkened by clouds

            we see a slanting shaft of sunlight on                     51

one field of lovely flowers. Now I saw

many fields of loveliness lit by rays                       

flashing from high above. O gracious light,           54

making them visible to one without

the strength to see their source. What courtesy!

            When praying night and morn I say the name       57

of that fair virgin rose. Seeing the ray       

that lit her, I then mystically knew

            it had to be Archangel Gabriel.                             60

And when at last I saw the magnitude      

of that angelic rose, as more sublime

            than all the lesser blooms beside her there            63

                              

as she was more than those on earth below,

there came a torch descending through the sky.

            Circling, it made a glory round her like                66

a halo, like a crown. Music began.  

The sweetest tune that soothes us here below

            would crash like thunder on the ear of those        69

  

who ever knew the music of that sphere, 

            the angels’ coronation song for her,

the pure sapphire who ensapphires Heaven.        72

They sang, “O holy love surrounding joy

            in womb that was the inn where came to be

            One wanted by created folk who need                75

salvation. Now crowned the Queen of Heaven,

            follow your Son to glory in the sphere

highest of all!” The choral music stopped.          78

The crowned rose vanished upward and I saw

all the white radiances raise their flames

like babies stretching chubby arms toward          81      

their mother when she’s suckled them. They sang

their hymn to Heaven’s Queen again. The joy

of that sweet music will be always mine.            84

How great are riches of delight heaped up          

in Heaven’s treasury for those on earth

            who, by their exile, tears and poverty                 87

           

will triumph in the total victory

of God, His Son and Mary, with the saints

of Old and New Testaments, and holder                           

of keys to the gates of so much glory.                            91