# Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 3/Canto 27

"Glory be to the Father, to the Son,  And Holy Ghost!" all Paradise began,  So that the melody inebriate made me.
What I beheld seemed unto me a smile  Of the universe; for my inebriation  Found entrance through the hearing and the sight.
O joy! O gladness inexpressible!  O perfect life of love and peacefulness!  O riches without hankering secure!
Before mine eyes were standing the four torches  Enkindled, and the one that first had come  Began to make itself more luminous;
And even such in semblance it became  As Jupiter would become, if he and Mars  Were birds, and they should interchange their feathers.
That Providence, which here distributeth  Season and service, in the blessed choir  Had silence upon every side imposed.
When I heard say: "If I my colour change,  Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking  Thou shalt behold all these their colour change.
He who usurps upon the earth my place,  My place, my place, which vacant has become  Before the presence of the Son of God,
Has of my cemetery made a sewer  Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,  Who fell from here, below there is appeased!"
With the same colour which, through sun adverse,  Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn,  Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.
And as a modest woman, who abides  Sure of herself, and at another's failing,  From listening only, timorous becomes,
Even thus did Beatrice change countenance;  And I believe in heaven was such eclipse,  When suffered the supreme Omnipotence;
Thereafterward proceeded forth his words  With voice so much transmuted from itself,  The very countenance was not more changed.
"The spouse of Christ has never nurtured been  On blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus,  To be made use of in acquest of gold;
But in acquest of this delightful life  Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,  After much lamentation, shed their blood.
Our purpose was not, that on the right hand  Of our successors should in part be seated  The Christian folk, in part upon the other;
Nor that the keys which were to me confided  Should e'er become the escutcheon on a banner,  That should wage war on those who are baptized;
Nor I be made the figure of a seal  To privileges venal and mendacious,  Whereat I often redden and flash with fire.
In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves  Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures!  O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?
To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons  Are making ready. O thou good beginning,  Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!
But the high Providence, that with Scipio  At Rome the glory of the world defended,  Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive;
And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weight  Shalt down return again, open thy mouth;  What I conceal not, do not thou conceal."
As with its frozen vapours downward falls  In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn  Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun,
Upward in such array saw I the ether  Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapours,  Which there together with us had remained.
My sight was following up their semblances,  And followed till the medium, by excess,  The passing farther onward took from it;
Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freed  From gazing upward, said to me: "Cast down  Thy sight, and see how far thou art turned round."
Since the first time that I had downward looked,  I saw that I had moved through the whole arc  Which the first climate makes from midst to end;
So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses  Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore  Whereon became Europa a sweet burden.
And of this threshing-floor the site to me  Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding  Under my feet, a sign and more removed.
My mind enamoured, which is dallying  At all times with my Lady, to bring back  To her mine eyes was more than ever ardent.
And if or Art or Nature has made bait  To catch the eyes and so possess the mind,  In human flesh or in its portraiture,
All joined together would appear as nought  To the divine delight which shone upon me  When to her smiling face I turned me round.
The virtue that her look endowed me with  From the fair nest of Leda tore me forth,  And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me.
Its parts exceeding full of life and lofty  Are all so uniform, I cannot say  Which Beatrice selected for my place.
But she, who was aware of my desire,  Began, the while she smiled so joyously  That God seemed in her countenance to rejoice:
"The nature of that motion, which keeps quiet  The centre and all the rest about it moves,  From hence begins as from its starting point.
And in this heaven there is no other Where  Than in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindled  The love that turns it, and the power it rains.
Within a circle light and love embrace it,  Even as this doth the others, and that precinct  He who encircles it alone controls.
Its motion is not by another meted,  But all the others measured are by this,  As ten is by the half and by the fifth.
And in what manner time in such a pot  May have its roots, and in the rest its leaves,  Now unto thee can manifest be made.
O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf  Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power  Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves!
Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will;  But the uninterrupted rain converts  Into abortive wildings the true plums.
Fidelity and innocence are found  Only in children; afterwards they both  Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered.
One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts,  Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours  Whatever food under whatever moon;
Another, while he prattles, loves and listens  Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect  Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.
Even thus is swarthy made the skin so white  In its first aspect of the daughter fair  Of him who brings the morn, and leaves the night.
Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee,  Think that on earth there is no one who governs;  Whence goes astray the human family.
Ere January be unwintered wholly  By the centesimal on earth neglected,  Shall these supernal circles roar so loud
The tempest that has been so long awaited  Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows;  So that the fleet shall run its course direct,
And the true fruit shall follow on the flower."