Not from that region which the highest thunders
  Is any mortal eye so far removed,
  In whatsoever sea it deepest sinks,

As there from Beatrice my sight; but this
  Was nothing unto me; because her image
  Descended not to me by medium blurred.

"O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong,
  And who for my salvation didst endure
  In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet,

Of whatsoever things I have beheld,
  As coming from thy power and from thy goodness
  I recognise the virtue and the grace.

Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom,
  By all those ways, by all the expedients,
  Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it.

Preserve towards me thy magnificence,
  So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed,
  Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body."

Thus I implored; and she, so far away,
  Smiled, as it seemed, and looked once more at me;
  Then unto the eternal fountain turned.

And said the Old Man holy: "That thou mayst
  Accomplish perfectly thy journeying,
  Whereunto prayer and holy love have sent me,

Fly with thine eyes all round about this garden;
  For seeing it will discipline thy sight
  Farther to mount along the ray divine.

And she, the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn
  Wholly with love, will grant us every grace,
  Because that I her faithful Bernard am."

As he who peradventure from Croatia
  Cometh to gaze at our Veronica,
  Who through its ancient fame is never sated,

But says in thought, the while it is displayed,
  "My Lord, Christ Jesus, God of very God,
  Now was your semblance made like unto this?"

Even such was I while gazing at the living
  Charity of the man, who in this world
  By contemplation tasted of that peace.

"Thou son of grace, this jocund life," began he,
  "Will not be known to thee by keeping ever
  Thine eyes below here on the lowest place;

But mark the circles to the most remote,
  Until thou shalt behold enthroned the Queen
  To whom this realm is subject and devoted."

I lifted up mine eyes, and as at morn
  The oriental part of the horizon
  Surpasses that wherein the sun goes down,

Thus, as if going with mine eyes from vale
  To mount, I saw a part in the remoteness
  Surpass in splendour all the other front.

And even as there where we await the pole
  That Phaeton drove badly, blazes more
  The light, and is on either side diminished,

So likewise that pacific oriflamme
  Gleamed brightest in the centre, and each side
  In equal measure did the flame abate.

And at that centre, with their wings expanded,
  More than a thousand jubilant Angels saw I,
  Each differing in effulgence and in kind.

I saw there at their sports and at their songs
  A beauty smiling, which the gladness was
  Within the eyes of all the other saints;

And if I had in speaking as much wealth
  As in imagining, I should not dare
  To attempt the smallest part of its delight.

Bernard, as soon as he beheld mine eyes
  Fixed and intent upon its fervid fervour,
  His own with such affection turned to her

That it made mine more ardent to behold.