The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864

So I beheld one by the other grand
Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted,
Lauding the food that there above is eaten.
But when their gratulations were completed,
Silently coram me each one stood still,
So incandescent it o'ercame my sight.
Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice:
"Spirit august, by whom the benefactions
Of our Basilica have been described, [30] (#x5_x_5_i327)
Make Hope reverberate in this altitude;
Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it
As Jesus to the three gave greater light,"– [33] (#x5_x_5_i328)
"Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured; [34] (#x5_x_5_i329)
For what comes hither from the mortal world
Must needs be ripened in our radiance."
This exhortation from the second fire [37] (#x5_x_5_i330)
Came; and mine eyes I lifted to the hills, [38] (#x5_x_5_i331)
Which bent them down before with too great weight,
"Since, through his grace, our Emperor decrees
Thou shouldst confronted be, before thy death,
In the most secret chamber, with his Counts, [42] (#x5_x_5_i332)

So that, the truth beholding of this court,
Hope, which below there rightly fascinates,
In thee and others may thereby be strengthened;
Say what it is, and how is flowering with it
Thy mind, and say from whence it came to thee":
Thus did the second light continue still.
And the Compassionate, who piloted [49] (#x5_x_5_i333)
The plumage of my wings in such high flight,
In the reply did thus anticipate me:
"No child whatever the Church Militant
Of greater hope possesses, as is written
In that Sun which irradiates all our band; [54] (#x5_x_5_i334)
Therefore it is conceded him from Egypt
To come into Jerusalem to see, [56] (#x5_x_5_i337)
Or ever yet his warfare is completed.
The other points, that not for knowledge' sake [58] (#x5_x_5_i338)
Have been demanded, but that he report
How much this virtue unto thee is pleasing,
To him I leave; for hard he will not find them,
Nor to be boasted of; them let him answer;
And may the grace of God in this assist him!"
As a disciple, who obeys his teacher,
Ready and willing, where he is expert,
So that his excellence may be revealed,
"Hope," said I, "is the certain expectation [67] (#x5_x_5_i339)
Of glory in the hereafter, which proceedeth
From grace divine and merit precedent.
From many stars this light comes unto me;
But he instilled it first into my heart,
Who was chief singer unto the chief captain. [72] (#x5_x_5_i340)
Hope they in thee, in the high Theody
He says, all those who recognize thy name; [74] (#x5_x_5_i341)
And who does not, if he my faith possesses? [75] (#x5_x_5_i342)
Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling
In the Epistle, so that I am full,
And upon others rain again your rain." [78] (#x5_x_5_i343)
While I was speaking, in the living bosom
Of that effulgence quivered a sharp flash,
Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning.
Then breathed: "The love wherewith I am inflamed
Towards the virtue still, which followed me
Unto the palm and issue of the field,
Wills that I whisper thee, thou take delight
In her; and grateful to me is thy saying
Whatever things Hope promises to thee."
And I: "The ancient Scriptures and the new
The mark establish, and this shows it me, [89] (#x5_x_5_i344)
Of all the souls whom God has made his friends.
Isaiah saith, that each one garmented
In his own land shall be with twofold garments, [92] (#x5_x_5_i345)
And his own land is this sweet life of yours.

Thy brother, too, far more explicitly,
There where he treateth of the robes of white, [95] (#x5_x_5_i346)
This revelation manifests to us."
And first, and near the ending of these words,
Sperent in te from over us was heard,
To which responsive answered all the carols. [99] (#x5_x_5_i347)
Thereafterward among them gleamed a light, [100] (#x5_x_5_i348)
So that, if Cancer such a crystal had,
Winter would have a month of one sole day. [102] (#x5_x_5_i349)
And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance
A joyous maiden, only to do honor
To the new bride, and not from any failing, [105] (#x5_x_5_i350)
So saw I the illuminated splendor
Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved, [107] (#x5_x_5_i351)
As was beseeming to their ardent love.
It joined itself there in the song and music;
And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,
Even as a bride, silent and motionless.
"This is the one who lay upon the breast
Of him our Pelican; and this is he
To the great office from the cross elected." [114] (#x5_x_5_i352)
My Lady thus; but therefore none the more
Removed her sight from its fixed contemplation,
Before or afterward, these words of hers.
Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors
To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,