dream, and who endeavors
      In vain to bring it back into his mind,
    When I this invitation heard, deserving
      Of so much gratitude, it never fades
      Out of the book that chronicles the past. 
    If at this moment sounded all the tongues
      That Polyhymnia and her sisters made [55]
      Most lubrical with their delicious milk,
    To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth
      It would not reach, singing the holy smile,
      And how the holy aspect it illumed. 
    And therefore, representing Paradise,
      The sacred poem must perforce leap over,
      Even as a man who finds his way cut off. 
    But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,
      And of the mortal shoulder that sustains it,
      Should blame it not, if under this it trembles. 
    It is no passage for a little boat
      This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,
      Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. 
      “Why does my face so much enamor thee,
      That to the garden fair thou turnest not,
      Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming? 
    There is the rose in which the Word Divine [72]
      Became incarnate; there the lilies are
      By whose perfume the good way was selected.” 
    Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels
      Was wholly ready, once again betook me
      Unto the battle of the feeble brows. 
    As in a sunbeam, that unbroken passes [78]
      Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers
      Mine eyes with shadow covered have beheld,
    So I beheld the multitudinous splendors
      Refulgent from above with burning rays,
      Beholding not the source of the effulgence. 
    O thou benignant power that so imprint’st them! [89]
      Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope
      There to the eyes, that were not strong enough. 
    The name of that fair flower I e’er invoke
      Morning and evening utterly enthralled
      My soul to gaze upon the greater fire. 
    And when in both mine eyes depicted were
      The glory and greatness of the living star
      Which conquers there, as here below it conquered,
    Athwart the heavens descended a bright sheen [98]
      Formed in a circle like a coronal,
      And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it. 
    Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth
      On earth, and to itself most draws the soul,
      Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders,
    Compared unto the sounding of that lyre
      Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful,
      Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue. [106]
      “I am Angelic Love, that circle round
      The joy sublime which breathes from out the bosom
      That was the hostelry of our Desire;