# Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 3/Canto 23

Even as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves,  Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood  Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,
Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks  And find the food wherewith to nourish them,  In which, to her, grave labours grateful are,
Anticipates the time on open spray  And with an ardent longing waits the sun,  Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn:
Even thus my Lady standing was, erect  And vigilant, turned round towards the zone  Underneath which the sun displays less haste;
So that beholding her distraught and wistful,  Such I became as he is who desiring  For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.
But brief the space from one When to the other;  Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing  The welkin grow resplendent more and more.
And Beatrice exclaimed: "Behold the hosts  Of Christ's triumphal march, and all the fruit  Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!"
It seemed to me her face was all aflame;  And eyes she had so full of ecstasy  That I must needs pass on without describing.
As when in nights serene of the full moon  Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal  Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,
Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,  A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,  E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,
And through the living light transparent shone  The lucent substance so intensely clear  Into my sight, that I sustained it not.
O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear!  To me she said: "What overmasters thee  A virtue is from which naught shields itself.
There are the wisdom and the omnipotence  That oped the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth,  For which there erst had been so long a yearning."
As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself,  Dilating so it finds not room therein,  And down, against its nature, falls to earth,
So did my mind, among those aliments  Becoming larger, issue from itself,  And that which it became cannot remember.
"Open thine eyes, and look at what I am:  Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough  Hast thou become to tolerate my smile."
I was as one who still retains the feeling  Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours  In vain to bring it back into his mind,
When I this invitation heard, deserving  Of so much gratitude, it never fades  Out of the book that chronicles the past.
If at this moment sounded all the tongues  That Polyhymnia and her sisters made  Most lubrical with their delicious milk,
To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth  It would not reach, singing the holy smile  And how the holy aspect it illumed.
And therefore, representing Paradise,  The sacred poem must perforce leap over,  Even as a man who finds his way cut off;
But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,  And of the mortal shoulder laden with it,  Should blame it not, if under this it tremble.
It is no passage for a little boat  This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,  Nor for a pilot who would spare himself.
"Why doth my face so much enamour thee,  That to the garden fair thou turnest not,  Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?
There is the Rose in which the Word Divine  Became incarnate; there the lilies are  By whose perfume the good way was discovered."
Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels  Was wholly ready, once again betook me  Unto the battle of the feeble brows.
As in the sunshine, that unsullied streams  Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers  Mine eyes with shadow covered o'er have seen,
So troops of splendours manifold I saw  Illumined from above with burning rays,  Beholding not the source of the effulgence.
O power benignant that dost so imprint them!  Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope  There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough.
The name of that fair flower I e'er invoke  Morning and evening utterly enthralled  My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.
And when in both mine eyes depicted were  The glory and greatness of the living star  Which there excelleth, as it here excelled,
Athwart the heavens a little torch descended  Formed in a circle like a coronal,  And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it.
Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth  On earth, and to itself most draws the soul,  Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders,
Compared unto the sounding of that lyre  Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful,  Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue.
"I am Angelic Love, that circle round  The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb  That was the hostelry of our Desire;
And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while  Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner  The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there."
Thus did the circulated melody  Seal itself up; and all the other lights  Were making to resound the name of Mary.
The regal mantle of the volumes all  Of that world, which most fervid is and living  With breath of God and with his works and ways,
Extended over us its inner border,  So very distant, that the semblance of it  There where I was not yet appeared to me.
Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power  Of following the incoronated flame,  Which mounted upward near to its own seed.
And as a little child, that towards its mother  Stretches its arms, when it the milk has taken,  Through impulse kindled into outward flame,
Each of those gleams of whiteness upward reached  So with its summit, that the deep affection  They had for Mary was revealed to me.
Thereafter they remained there in my sight,  'Regina coeli' singing with such sweetness,  That ne'er from me has the delight departed.
O, what exuberance is garnered up  Within those richest coffers, which had been  Good husbandmen for sowing here below!
There they enjoy and live upon the treasure  Which was acquired while weeping in the exile  Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left.
There triumpheth, beneath the exalted Son  Of God and Mary, in his victory,  Both with the ancient council and the new,
He who doth keep the keys of such a glory.