Persians say unto your kings,
When they shall see that volume, in the which
All their dispraise is written, spread to view? 
There amidst Albert’s works shall that be read,
Which will give speedy motion to the pen,
When Prague shall mourn her desolated realm. 
There shall be read the woe, that he doth work
With his adulterate money on the Seine,
Who by the tusk will perish:  there be read
The thirsting pride, that maketh fool alike
The English and Scot, impatient of their bound. 
There shall be seen the Spaniard’s luxury,
The delicate living there of the Bohemian,
Who still to worth has been a willing stranger. 
The halter of Jerusalem shall see
A unit for his virtue, for his vices
No less a mark than million.  He, who guards
The isle of fire by old Anchises honour’d
Shall find his avarice there and cowardice;
And better to denote his littleness,
The writing must be letters maim’d, that speak
Much in a narrow space.  All there shall know
His uncle and his brother’s filthy doings,
Who so renown’d a nation and two crowns
Have bastardized.  And they, of Portugal
And Norway, there shall be expos’d with him
Of Ratza, who hath counterfeited ill
The coin of Venice.  O blest Hungary! 
If thou no longer patiently abid’st
Thy ill-entreating! and, O blest Navarre! 
If with thy mountainous girdle thou wouldst arm thee
In earnest of that day, e’en now are heard
Wailings and groans in Famagosta’s streets
And Nicosia’s, grudging at their beast,
Who keepeth even footing with the rest.”

CANTO XX

When, disappearing, from our hemisphere,
The world’s enlightener vanishes, and day
On all sides wasteth, suddenly the sky,
Erewhile irradiate only with his beam,
Is yet again unfolded, putting forth
Innumerable lights wherein one shines. 
Of such vicissitude in heaven I thought,
As the great sign, that marshaleth the world
And the world’s leaders, in the blessed beak
Was silent; for that all those living lights,
Waxing in splendour, burst forth into songs,
Such as from memory glide and fall away. 
     Sweet love! that dost apparel thee in smiles,
How lustrous was thy semblance in those sparkles,
Which merely are from holy thoughts inspir’d! 
     After the precious and bright beaming stones,
That did ingem the sixth light, ceas’d the chiming
Of their angelic bells; methought I heard
The murmuring of a river, that doth fall
From rock to rock transpicuous, making known
The richness of his spring-head:  and as sound
Of cistern, at the fret-board, or of pipe,
Is, at the wind-hole, modulate and tun’d;
Thus up the neck, as it were hollow, rose
That murmuring of the eagle, and forthwith
Voice there assum’d, and thence along the beak
Issued in form of words, such as my heart