As when large floods of radiance from above
Stream, with that radiance mingled, which ascends
Next after setting of the scaly sign,
Our plants then burgeon, and each wears anew
His wonted colours, ere the sun have yok’d
Beneath another star his flamy steeds;
Thus putting forth a hue, more faint than rose,
And deeper than the violet, was renew’d
The plant, erewhile in all its branches bare.

Unearthly was the hymn, which then arose. 
I understood it not, nor to the end
Endur’d the harmony.  Had I the skill
To pencil forth, how clos’d th’ unpitying eyes
Slumb’ring, when Syrinx warbled, (eyes that paid
So dearly for their watching,) then like painter,
That with a model paints, I might design
The manner of my falling into sleep. 
But feign who will the slumber cunningly;
I pass it by to when I wak’d, and tell
How suddenly a flash of splendour rent
The curtain of my sleep, and one cries out: 
“Arise, what dost thou?” As the chosen three,
On Tabor’s mount, admitted to behold
The blossoming of that fair tree, whose fruit
Is coveted of angels, and doth make
Perpetual feast in heaven, to themselves
Returning at the word, whence deeper sleeps
Were broken, that they their tribe diminish’d saw,
Both Moses and Elias gone, and chang’d
The stole their master wore:  thus to myself
Returning, over me beheld I stand
The piteous one, who cross the stream had brought
My steps.  “And where,” all doubting, I exclaim’d,
“Is Beatrice?”—­“See her,” she replied,
“Beneath the fresh leaf seated on its root. 
Behold th’ associate choir that circles her. 
The others, with a melody more sweet
And more profound, journeying to higher realms,
Upon the Gryphon tend.”  If there her words
Were clos’d, I know not; but mine eyes had now
Ta’en view of her, by whom all other thoughts
Were barr’d admittance.  On the very ground
Alone she sat, as she had there been left
A guard upon the wain, which I beheld
Bound to the twyform beast.  The seven nymphs
Did make themselves a cloister round about her,
And in their hands upheld those lights secure
From blast septentrion and the gusty south.

“A little while thou shalt be forester here: 
And citizen shalt be forever with me,
Of that true Rome, wherein Christ dwells a Roman
To profit the misguided world, keep now
Thine eyes upon the car; and what thou seest,
Take heed thou write, returning to that place.”

Thus Beatrice:  at whose feet inclin’d
Devout, at her behest, my thought and eyes,
I, as she bade, directed.  Never fire,
With so swift motion, forth a stormy cloud
Leap’d downward from the welkin’s farthest bound,
As I beheld the bird of Jove descending
Pounce on the tree, and, as he rush’d, the rind,
Disparting crush beneath him, buds much more
And leaflets.  On the car with all his might
He struck, whence, staggering like a ship, it reel’d,
At random driv’n, to starboard now, o’ercome,
And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves.