| |
| CALL to remembrance, reader, if thou e’er | |
| Hast on an Alpine height been ta’en by cloud, | |
| Through which thou saw’st no better than the mole | |
| Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene’er | |
| The watery vapours dense began to melt | 5 |
| Into thin air, how faintly the sun’s sphere | |
| Seem’d wading through them: so thy nimble thought | |
| May image, how at first I rebeheld | |
| The sun, that bedward now his couch o’erhung. | |
| Thus, with my leader’s feet still equaling pace, | 10 |
| From forth that could I came, when now expired | |
| The parting beams from off the nether shores. | |
| O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost | |
| So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark | |
| Though round about us thousand trumpets clang; | 15 |
| What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light | |
| Moves thee from Heaven, spontaneous, self-inform’d; | |
| Or, likelier, gliding down with swift illapse | |
| By will divine. Portray’d before me came | |
| The traces of her dire impiety, | 20 |
| Whose form was changed into the bird, that most | |
| Delights itself in song: 1 and here my mind | |
| Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place | |
| To aught that ask’d admittance from without. | |
| Next shower’d into my fantasy a shape | 25 |
| As of one crucified, whose visage spake | |
| Fell rancour, malice deep, wherein he died; | |
| And round him Ahasuerus the great king; | |
| Esther his bride; and Mordecai the just, | |
| Blameless in word and deed. As of itself | 30 |
| That unsubstantial coinage of the brain | |
| Burst, like a bubble, when the water fails | |
| That fed it; in my vision straight uprose | |
| A damsel 2 weeping loud, and cried, “O queen! | |
| O mother! wherefore has intemperate ire | 35 |
| Driven thee to loathe thy being? Not to lose | |
| Lavinia, desperate thou hast slain thyself. | |
| Now hast thou lost me. I am she, whose tears | |
| Mourn, ere I fall, a mother’s timeless end.” | |
| E’en as a sleep breaks off, if suddenly | 40 |
| New radiance strikes upon the closed lids, | |
| The broken slumber quivering ere it dies; | |
| Thus, from before me, sunk that imagery, | |
| Vanishing, soon as on my face there struck | |
| The light, outshining far our earthly beam. | 45 |
| As round I turn’d me to survey what place | |
| I had arrived at, “Here ye mount”: exclaim’d | |
| A voice, that other purpose left me none | |
| Save will so eager to behold who spake, | |
| I could not chuse but gaze. As ’fore the sun, | 50 |
| That weighs our vision down, and veils his form | |
| In light transcendent, thus my virtue fail’d | |
| Unequal. “This is Spirit from above, | |
| Who marshals us our upward way, unsought; | |
| And in his own light shrouds him. As a man | 55 |
| Doth for himself, so now is done for us. | |
| For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need | |
| Of his prompt aidance, sets himself prepared | |
| For blunt denial, ere the suit be made. | |
| Refuse we not to lend a ready foot | 60 |
| At such inviting: haste we to ascend, | |
| Before it darken: for we may not then, | |
| Till morn again return.” So spake my guide; | |
| And to one ladder both address’d our steps; | |
| And the first stair approaching, I perceived | 65 |
| Near me as ’t were the waving of a wing, | |
| That fann’d my face, and whisper’d: “Blessed they, | |
| The peace-makers: they know not evil wrath.” | |
| Now to such height above our heads were raised | |
| The last beams, follow’d close by hooded night, | 70 |
| That many a star on all sides through the gloom | |
| Shone out. “Why partest from me, O my strength?” | |
| So with myself I communed; for I felt | |
| My o’ertoil’d sinews slacken. We had reach’d | |
| The summit, and were fix’d like to a bark | 75 |
| Arrived at land. And waiting a short space, | |
| If aught should meet mine ear in that new round, | |
| Then to my guide I turn’d, and said: “Loved sire! | |
| Declare what guilt is on this circle purged. | |
| If our feet rest, no need thy speech should pause.” | 80 |
| He thus to me: “The love of good, whate’er | |
| Wanted of just proportion, here fulfils. | |
| Here plies afresh the oar, that loiter’d ill. | |
| But that thou mayst yet clearlier understand, | |
| Give ear unto my words; and thou shalt cull | 85 |
| Some fruit may please thee well, from this delay. | |
| “Creator, nor created being, e’er, | |
| My son,” he thus began, “was without love, | |
| Or natural, or the free spirit’s growth, | |
| Thou hast not that to learn. The natural still | 90 |
| Is without error: but the other swerves, | |
| If on ill object bent, or through excess | |
| Of vigour, or defect. While e’er it seeks | |
| The primal blessings, 3 or with measure due | |
| The inferior, 4 no delight, that flows from it, | 95 |
| Partakes of ill. But let it warp to evil, | |
| Or with more ardour than behoves, or less, | |
| Pursue the good; the thing created then | |
| Works ’gainst its Maker. Hence thou must infer | |
| That love is germin of each virtue in ye, | 100 |
| And of each act no less, that merits pain. | |
| Now 5 since it may not be, but love intend | |
| The welfare mainly of the thing it loves, | |
| All from self-hatred are secure; and since | |
| No being can be thought to exist apart, | 105 |
| And independent of the first, a bar | |
| Of equal force restrains from hating that. | |
| “Grant the distinction just; and it remains | |
| The evil must be another’s, which is loved. | |
| Three ways such love is gender’d in your clay. | 110 |
| There is 6 who hopes (his neighbour’s worth deprest) | |
| Pre-eminence himself; and covets hence, | |
| For his own greatness, that another fall. | |
| There is 7 who so much fears the loss of power, | |
| Fame, favour, glory, (should his fellow mount | 115 |
| Above him), and so sickens at the thought, | |
| He loves their opposite: and there is he, 8 | |
| Whom wrong or insult seems to gall and shame, | |
| That he doth thirst for vengeance; and such needs | |
| Must dote on other’s evil. Here beneath, | 120 |
| This threefold love is mourn’d. Of the other sort | |
| Be now instructed; that which follows good, | |
| But with disorder’d and irregular course. | |
| “All indistinctly apprehend a bliss, | |
| On which the soul may rest; the hearts of all | 125 |
| Yearn after it; and to that wished bourn | |
| All therefore strive to tend. If ye behold, | |
| Or seek it, with a love remiss and lax; | |
| This cornice, after just repenting, lays | |
| Its penal torment on ye. Other good | 130 |
| There is, where man finds not his happiness: | |
| It is not true fruition; not that blest | |
| Essence, of every good the branch and root. | |
| The love too lavishly bestow’d on this, | |
| Along three circles over us, is mourn’d. | 135 |
| Account of that division tripartite | |
| Expect not, fitter for thine own research.” | |
