The better disclose his glory:  whence
The vision needs increasing, much increase
The fervour, which it kindles; and that too
The ray, that comes from it.  But as the greed
Which gives out flame, yet it its whiteness shines
More lively than that, and so preserves
Its proper semblance; thus this circling sphere
Of splendour, shall to view less radiant seem,
Than shall our fleshly robe, which yonder earth
Now covers.  Nor will such excess of light
O’erpower us, in corporeal organs made
Firm, and susceptible of all delight.” 
     So ready and so cordial an “Amen,”
Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke
Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance
Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear,
Mothers and sires, and those whom best they lov’d,
Ere they were made imperishable flame. 
     And lo! forthwith there rose up round about
A lustre over that already there,
Of equal clearness, like the brightening up
Of the horizon.  As at an evening hour
Of twilight, new appearances through heav’n
Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried;
So there new substances, methought began
To rise in view; and round the other twain
Enwheeling, sweep their ampler circuit wide. 
     O gentle glitter of eternal beam! 
With what a such whiteness did it flow,
O’erpowering vision in me!  But so fair,
So passing lovely, Beatrice show’d,
Mind cannot follow it, nor words express
Her infinite sweetness.  Thence mine eyes regain’d
Power to look up, and I beheld myself,
Sole with my lady, to more lofty bliss
Translated:  for the star, with warmer smile
Impurpled, well denoted our ascent. 
     With all the heart, and with that tongue which speaks
The same in all, an holocaust I made
To God, befitting the new grace vouchsaf’d. 
And from my bosom had not yet upsteam’d
The fuming of that incense, when I knew
The rite accepted.  With such mighty sheen
And mantling crimson, in two listed rays
The splendours shot before me, that I cried,
“God of Sabaoth! that does prank them thus!”
     As leads the galaxy from pole to pole,
Distinguish’d into greater lights and less,
Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell;
So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars,
Those rays describ’d the venerable sign,
That quadrants in the round conjoining frame. 
Here memory mocks the toil of genius.  Christ
Beam’d on that cross; and pattern fails me now. 
But whoso takes his cross, and follows Christ
Will pardon me for that I leave untold,
When in the flecker’d dawning he shall spy
The glitterance of Christ.  From horn to horn,
And ’tween the summit and the base did move
Lights, scintillating, as they met and pass’d. 
Thus oft are seen, with ever-changeful glance,
Straight or athwart, now rapid and now slow,
The atomies of bodies, long or short,