CANTO XXX

Noon’s fervid hour perchance six thousand miles
From hence is distant; and the shadowy cone
Almost to level on our earth declines;
When from the midmost of this blue abyss
By turns some star is to our vision lost. 
And straightway as the handmaid of the sun
Puts forth her radiant brow, all, light by light,
Fade, and the spangled firmament shuts in,
E’en to the loveliest of the glittering throng. 
Thus vanish’d gradually from my sight
The triumph, which plays ever round the point,
That overcame me, seeming (for it did)
Engirt by that it girdeth.  Wherefore love,
With loss of other object, forc’d me bend
Mine eyes on Beatrice once again. 
     If all, that hitherto is told of her,
Were in one praise concluded, ’t were too weak
To furnish out this turn.  Mine eyes did look
On beauty, such, as I believe in sooth,
Not merely to exceed our human, but,
That save its Maker, none can to the full
Enjoy it.  At this point o’erpower’d I fail,
Unequal to my theme, as never bard
Of buskin or of sock hath fail’d before. 
For, as the sun doth to the feeblest sight,
E’en so remembrance of that witching smile
Hath dispossess my spirit of itself. 
Not from that day, when on this earth I first
Beheld her charms, up to that view of them,
Have I with song applausive ever ceas’d
To follow, but not follow them no more;
My course here bounded, as each artist’s is,
When it doth touch the limit of his skill. 
     She (such as I bequeath her to the bruit
Of louder trump than mine, which hasteneth on,
Urging its arduous matter to the close),
Her words resum’d, in gesture and in voice
Resembling one accustom’d to command: 
“Forth from the last corporeal are we come
Into the heav’n, that is unbodied light,
Light intellectual replete with love,
Love of true happiness replete with joy,
Joy, that transcends all sweetness of delight. 
Here shalt thou look on either mighty host
Of Paradise; and one in that array,
Which in the final judgment thou shalt see.” 
     As when the lightning, in a sudden spleen
Unfolded, dashes from the blinding eyes
The visive spirits dazzled and bedimm’d;
So, round about me, fulminating streams
Of living radiance play’d, and left me swath’d
And veil’d in dense impenetrable blaze. 
Such weal is in the love, that stills this heav’n;
For its own flame the torch this fitting ever! 
     No sooner to my list’ning ear had come
The brief assurance, than I understood
New virtue into me infus’d, and sight
Kindled afresh, with vigour to sustain
Excess of light, however pure.  I look’d;
And in the likeness of a river saw
Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves
Flash’d up effulgence, as they glided on
’Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring,