The Portable Dante (82 page)

And he who prophesied before he died the sad days destined for the lovely Bride whom Christ won for himself with lance and nails

sits at his side. Beside the other sits the leader of those nurtured on God’s manna, who were a fickle, ingrate, stubborn lot.

Across from Peter, see there, Anna sits, so happy to be looking at her daughter, she does not move an eye singing Hosanna;

facing the head of mankind’s family sits Lucy, who first sent your lady to you when you were bent, headlong, on your own ruin.

But since the time left for your journey’s vision grows short, let us stop here—like the good tailor who cuts the gown according to his cloth,

and turn our eyes upon the Primal Love so that, looking toward Him, you penetrate His radiance as deep as possible.

But lest you fall backwards beating your wings, believing to ascend on your own power, we must offer a prayer requesting grace,

grace from the one who has power to help you. Now, follow me, with all of your devotion, and do not let your heart stray from my words. ”

And he began to say this holy prayer:

“Oh Virgin Mother, daughter of your son, most humble, most exalted of all creatures chosen of God in His eternal plan,

you are the one who ennobled human nature to the extent that He did not disdain, Who was its Maker, to make Himself man.

Within your womb rekindled was the love that gave the warmth that did allow this flower to come to bloom within this timeless peace.

For all up here you are the noonday torch of charity, and down on earth, for men, the living spring of their eternal hope.

Lady, you are so great, so powerful, that who seeks grace without recourse to you would have his wish fly upward without wings.

Not only does your loving kindness rush to those who ask for it, but often times it flows spontaneously before the plea.

In you is tenderness, in you is pity, in you munificence—in you unites all that is good in God’s created beings.

This is a man who from the deepest pit of all the universe up to this height has witnessed, one by one, the lives of souls,

who begs you that you grant him through your grace the power to raise his vision higher still to penetrate the final blessedness.

And I who never burned for my own vision more than I burn for his, with all my prayers I pray you—and I pray they are enough—

that you through your own prayers dispel the mist of his mortality, that he may have the Sum of Joy revealed before his eyes.

I pray you also, Queen who can achieve your every wish, keep his affections sound once he has had the vision and returns.

Protect him from the stirrings of the flesh: you see, with Beatrice, all the Blest, hands clasped in prayer, are praying for my prayer. ”

Those eyes so loved and reverenced by God, now fixed on him who prayed, made clear to us how precious true devotion is to her;

then she looked into the Eternal Light, into whose being, we must believe, no eyes of other creatures pierce with such insight.

And I who was approaching now the end of all man’s yearning, strained with all the force in me to raise my burning longing high.

Bernard then gestured to me with a smile that I look up, but I already was instinctively what he would have me be:

for now my vision as it grew more clear was penetrating more and more the Ray of that exalted Light of Truth Itself.

And from then on my vision rose to heights higher than words, which fail before such sight, and memory fails, too, at such extremes.

As he who sees things in a dream and wakes to feel the passion of the dream still there although no part of it remains in mind,

just such am I: my vision fades and all but ceases, yet the sweetness born of it I still can feel distilling in my heart:

so imprints on the snow fade in the sun, and thus the Sibyl’s oracle of leaves was swept away and lost into the wind.

O Light Supreme, so far beyond the reach of mortal understanding, to my mind relend now some small part of Your own Self,

and give to my tongue eloquence enough to capture just one spark of all Your glory that I may leave for future generations;

for, by returning briefly to my mind and sounding, even faintly, in my verse, more of Your might will be revealed to men.

If I had turned my eyes away, I think, from the sharp brilliance of the living Ray which they endured, I would have lost my senses.

And this, as I recall, gave me more strength to keep on gazing till I could unite my vision with the Infinite Worth I saw.

0 grace abounding and allowing me to dare to fix my gaze on the Eternal Light, so deep my vision was consumed in It!

I saw how it contains within its depths all things bound in a single book by love of which creation is the scattered leaves:

how substance, accident, and their relation were fused in such a way that what I now describe is but a glimmer of that Light.

I know I saw the universal form, the fusion of all things, for I can feel, while speaking now, my heart leap up in joy.

One instant brings me more forgetfulness than five and twenty centuries brought the quest that stunned Neptune when he saw Argo’s keel.

And so my mind was totally entranced in gazing deeply, motionless, intent; the more it saw the more it burned to see.

And one is so transformed within that Light that it would be impossible to think of ever turning one’s eyes from that sight,

because the good which is the goal of will is all collected there, and outside it all is defective that is perfect there.

Now, even in the things I do recall my words have no more strength than does a babe wetting its tongue, still at its mother’s breast.

Not that within the Living Light there was more than a sole aspect of the Divine which always is what It has always been,

yet as I learned to see more, and the power of vision grew in me, that single aspect as I changed, seemed to me to change Itself.

Within Its depthless clarity of substance I saw the Great Light shine into three circles in three clear colors bound in one same space;

the first seemed to reflect the next like rainbow on rainbow, and the third was like a flame equally breathed forth by the other two.

How my weak words fall short of my conception, which is itself so far from what I saw that “weak” is much too weak a word to use!

O Light Eternal fixed in Self alone, known only to Yourself, and knowing Self, You love and glow, knowing and being known!

That circling which, as I conceived it, shone in You as Your own first reflected light when I had looked deep into It a while,

seemed in Itself and in Its own Self-color to be depicted with man’s very image. My eyes were totally absorbed in It.

As the geomeier who tries so hard to square the circle, but cannot discover, think as he may, the principle involved,

so did I strive with this new mystery: I yearned to know how could our image fit into that circle, how could it conform;

but my own wings could not take me so high— then a great flash of understanding struck my mind, and suddenly its wish was granted.

At this point power failed high fantasy but, like a wheel in perfect balance turning, I felt my will and my desire impelled

by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.