1 Just as at night the seven stars we call
The Plough and Charlie’s Wain and The Great Bear
guide all good steersmen on the salt sea plain,
4 so three great Christian virtues: Faith, Hope, Love,
with Courage, Wisdom, Justice, Temperance
(four virtues Pagans recognise) create
7 to eyes not blinded by the fog of sin,
the candelabrum holding seven flames
which light for us the way to God above.
10 The Heavenly Grace I know as Beatrice
is carried by His chariot, the Kirk
whose baring pole is the true cross of Christ.
13 After it halted, all the twenty-four
pure white-robed, leaf-crowned patriarchs between
candles and griffin turned toward the car
16 with smiling faces, blissfully serene,
and one inspired by Heaven, sang three times,
O come to me from Lebanon, my bride.
19 The others joined their melody to his
like blessèd souls on Resurrection Day,
raised by the clang of the last trump to sing
hosannas with rejuvenated tongue. 22
At the great sound I saw above the car
a hundred angel ministers appear
who sang, Blessèd is she who comes, and then, 25
O give her lilies with full hands. They flung
up and around flowers of every kind.
I once saw in the dawning of a day 28
a rosy eastern sky, clear blue above,
while low white mist so gently veiled the sun,
my eyes could linger on its perfect sphere. 31
Thus in the cloud of blooms from angel hands
that whirled and fell inside the car and out,
a lady came, with olive garland crowned 34
and white veil, misting a green dress through which
her loveliness shone like a living flame.
I had not felt the awe now filling me 37
for many years. I had first felt it when
a child of nine, I met another child
I loved unselfishly, and so knew then 40
what press of adult care made me forget –
that love can be and ought to be divine.
The goddess now reminded me of this. 43
I turned to Virgil in my sore distress
as a child turns to mother in a fright
meaning to say, “I tremble with despair – 46
how can I make my treachery come right?”
He was not there. Virgil, my dearest friend,
49 the good guide who had led me safe through Hell,
and washed my cheeks with dew to make me fit
to climb so close to my salvation
52 had vanished. Gone. I wept, then heard a voice.
“Don’t weep now, Dante. You must shed more tears
for worse than loss of Virgil’s company.”
55 Hearing my name I turned and saw her stand
within the car, speaking across the stream
as admirals commanding fleets address
58 a sailor, from a flagship’s highest deck.
The veil descending from her head, held there
by olive-wreath-sprays from Minerva’s tree
61 did not allow a clear view of her face,
and yet the regal way she spoke conveyed
her harshness was restrained by tenderness.
64 “Look well at me. I am your Beatrice.
How dare you weep up here? Did you not know
this paradise is made for happiness?”
67 Ashamed, I stared down into the pure stream;
saw my glum face reflected; turned away.
Stern pity has for me a bitter taste.
70 She spoke no further as the angels sang
the psalm that starts, My hope is in the Lord,
ending with, You give freedom to my feet.
73 They seemed to say, Lady, why blame him so?
Such Heavenly compassion warmed and thawed
ice that had bound my heart. This flowed away
like candlewax in flame, or frozen snow 76
packed hard by northern blasts between the firs
upon the Apennines (Italy’s spine)
melting in breezes out of Africa. 79
I who had never so profoundly grieved,
poured from my eyes and mouth, water and sighs.
They proved my agony was honesty. 82
Still upright in her car my lady said,
“You spirits living in eternal day
know well why he’s to blame. I only asked 85
to let him hear me make his falseness plain.
Repentance needs his grief to equal guilt,
sorrow to balance his dead weight of sin. 88
The starry wheels that turn the universe
let folk bring gifts from God to splendid ends,
but only through their will. He had great gifts. 91
With care they would have yielded splendid fruit,
yet in good soil foul weeds may also sprout.
Our childhood love preserved his innocence. 94
His adolescence brought new friends, but sight
of my young eyes at times still kept him right.
When twenty-five I died and was reborn 97
in purity, while his acquaintances
misled his will, because he now pursued
visions of good that could not be made real. 100
In dreams and memories I called him back.
He did not heed, sank low till Heaven feared
103 for his salvation. Only showing him
the wholly lost in Hell could save his soul;
and so I went to Limbo, found the man
106 who led him here where I will be his guide,
for I must lead him to a greater height
that poetry may show to folk on Earth
109 the architecture of eternity.
But Heaven would undo its high decrees
were he not first washed clean in Lethe’s stream.
112 The saltest tears must pay his entrance fees.”