When he who all the world illuminates
  Out of our hemisphere so far descends
  That on all sides the daylight is consumed,

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,
  Doth suddenly reveal itself again
  By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.

And came into my mind this act of heaven,
  When the ensign of the world and of its leaders
  Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,
  By far more luminous, did songs begin
  Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,
  How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,
  That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!

After the precious and pellucid crystals,
  With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,
  Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river
  That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,
  Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.

And as the sound upon the cithern's neck
  Taketh its form, and as upon the vent
  Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,

Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,
  That murmuring of the eagle mounted up
  Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.

There it became a voice, and issued thence
  From out its beak, in such a form of words
  As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.

"The part in me which sees and bears the sun
  In mortal eagles," it began to me,
  "Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;

For of the fires of which I make my figure,
  Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head
  Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil
  Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,
  Who bore the ark from city unto city;

Now knoweth he the merit of his song,
  In so far as effect of his own counsel,
  By the reward which is commensurate.

Of five, that make a circle for my brow,
  He that approacheth nearest to my beak
  Did the poor widow for her son console;

Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost
  Not following Christ, by the experience
  Of this sweet life and of its opposite.

He who comes next in the circumference
  Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,
  Did death postpone by penitence sincere;

Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment
  Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer
  Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.

The next who follows, with the laws and me,
  Under the good intent that bore bad fruit
  Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;

Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced
  From his good action is not harmful to him,
  Although the world thereby may be destroyed.

And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,
  Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores
  That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;

Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is
  With a just king; and in the outward show
  Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

Who would believe, down in the errant world,
  That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round
  Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?

Now knoweth he enough of what the world
  Has not the power to see of grace divine,
  Although his sight may not discern the bottom."

Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,
  First singing and then silent with content
  Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,