| |
| “O THOU!” her words she thus without delay | |
| Resuming, turn’d their point on me, to whom | |
| They, with but lateral edge, seem’d harsh before: | |
| “Say thou, who stand’st beyond the holy stream, | |
| If this be true. A charge, so grievous, needs | 5 |
| Thine own avowal.” On my faculty | |
| Such strange amazement hung, the voice expired | |
| Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth. | |
| A little space refraining, then she spake: | |
| “What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave | 10 |
| On thy remembrances of evil yet | |
| Hath done no injury.” A mingled sense | |
| Of fear and of confusion, from my lips | |
| Did such a “Yea” produce, as needed help | |
| Of vision to interpret. As when breaks, | 15 |
| In act to be discharged, a cross-bow bent | |
| Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o’erstretch’d; | |
| The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark: | |
| Thus, tears and sighs forth gushing, did I burst, | |
| Beneath the heavy load: and thus my voice | 20 |
| Was slacken’d on its way. She straight began: | |
| “When my desire invited thee to love | |
| The good, which sets a bound to our aspirings; | |
| What bar of thwarting foss or linked chain | |
| Did meet thee, that thou so shouldst quit the hope | 25 |
| Of further progress? or what bait of ease, | |
| Or promise of allurement, led thee on | |
| Elsewhere, that thou elsewhere shouldst rather wait?” | |
| A bitter sigh I drew, then scarce found voice | |
| To answer; hardly to these sounds my lips | 30 |
| Gave utterance, wailing: “Thy fair looks withdrawn, | |
| Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turn’d | |
| My steps aside.” She answering spake: “Hadst thou | |
| Been silent, or denied what thou avow’st, | |
| Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more; such eye | 35 |
| Observes it. But whene’er the sinner’s cheek | |
| Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears | |
| Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel | |
| Of justice doth run counter to the edge. 1 | |
| Howe’er, that thou mayst profit by thy shame | 40 |
| For errors past, and that henceforth more strength | |
| May arm thee, when thou hear’st the Syren-voice; | |
| Lay thou aside the motive to this grief, | |
| And lend attentive ear, while I unfold | |
| How opposite a way my buried flesh | 45 |
| Should have impell’d thee. Never didst thou spy, | |
| In art or nature, aught so passing sweet, | |
| As were the limbs that in their beauteous frame | |
| Enclosed me, and are scatter’d now in dust. | |
| If sweetest thing thus fail’d thee with my death, | 50 |
| What, afterward, of moral, should thy wish | |
| Have tempted? When thou first hadst felt the dart | |
| Of perishable things, in my departing | |
| For better realms, thy wing thou shouldst have pruned | |
| To follow me; and never stoop’d again, | 55 |
| To ’bide a second blow, for a slight girl, 2 | |
| Or other gaud as transient and as vain. | |
| The new and inexperienced bird 3 awaits, | |
| Twice it may be, or thrice, the fowler’s aim; | |
| But in the sight of one whose plumes are full, | 60 |
| In vain the net is spread, the arrow wing’d.” | |
| I stood, as children silent and ashamed | |
| Stand, listening, with their eyes upon the earth, | |
| Acknowledging their fault, and self-condemn’d. | |
| And she resumed: “If, but to hear, thus pains thee, | 65 |
| Raise thou thy beard, and lo! what sight shall do.” | |
| With less reluctance yields a sturdy holm, | |
| Rent from its fibres by a blast, that blows | |
| From off the pole, or from Iarbas’ land, 4 | |
| Than I at her behest my visage raised: | 70 |
| And thus the face denoting by the beard, | |
| I mark’d the secret sting her words convey’d. | |
| No sooner lifted I mine aspect up, | |
| Than I perceived those primal creatures cease | |
| Their flowery sprinkling; and mine eyes beheld | 75 |
| (Yet unassured and wavering in their view) | |
| Beatrice; she, who toward the mystic shape, | |
| That joins two natures in one form, had turn’d: | |
| And, even under shadow of her veil, | |
| And parted by the verdant rill that flow’d | 80 |
| Between, in loveliness she seem’d as much | |
| Her former self surpassing, as on earth | |
| All others she surpass’d. Remorseful goads | |
| Shot sudden through me. Each thing else, the more | |
| Its love had late beguiled me, now the more | 85 |
| Was loathsome. On my heart so keenly smote | |
| The bitter consciousness, that on the ground | |
| O’erpower’d I fell: and what my state was then, | |
| She knows, who was the cause. When now my strength | |
| Flow’d back, returning outward from the heart, | 90 |
| The lady, 5 whom alone I first had seen, | |
| I found above me. “Loose me not,” she cried: | |
| “Loose not thy hold:” and lo! had dragg’d me high | |
| As to my neck into the stream; while she, | |
| Still as she drew me after, swept along, | 95 |
| Swift as a shuttle, bounding o’er the wave. | |
| The blessed shore approaching, then was heard | |
| So sweetly, “Tu asperges me,” that I | |
| May not remember, much less tell the sound. | |
| The beauteous dame, her arms expanding, clasp’d | 100 |
| My temples, and immerged me where ’twas fit | |
| The wave should drench me: and, thence raising up, | |
| Within the fourfold dance of lovely nymphs | |
| Presented me so laved; and with their arm | |
| They each did cover me. “Here are we nymphs, | 105 |
| And in the heaven are stars. Or ever earth | |
| Was visited of Beatrice, we, | |
| Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her. | |
| We to her eyes will lead thee: but the light | |
| Of gladness, that is in them, well to scan, | 110 |
| Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours, | |
| Thy sight shall quicken.” Thus began their song: | |
| And then they led me to the Gryphon’s breast, | |
| Where, turn’d toward us, Beatrice stood. | |
| “Spare not thy vision. We have station’d thee | 115 |
| Before the emeralds, whence love, erewhile, | |
| Hath drawn his weapons on thee.” As they spake, | |
| A thousand fervent wishes riveted | |
| Mine eyes upon her beaming eyes, that stood, | |
| Still fix’d toward the Gryphon, motionless. | 120 |
| As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus | |
| Within those orbs the twofold being shone; | |
| Forever varying, in one figure now | |
| Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse | |
| How wondrous in my sight it seem’d, to mark | 125 |
| A thing, albeit steadfast in itself, | |
| Yet in its imaged semblance mutable. | |
| Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul | |
| Fed on the viand, whereof still desire | |
| Grows with satiety; the other three, | 130 |
| With gesture that declared a loftier line, | |
| Advanced: to their own carol, on they came | |
| Dancing, in festive ring angelical. | |
| “Turn, Beatrice!” was their song: “Oh! turn | |
| Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one, | 135 |
| Who, to behold thee, many a wearisome pace | |
| Hath measured. Gracious at our prayer, vouchsafe | |
| Unveiled to him thy cheeks; that he may mark | |
| Thy second beauty, now conceal’d.” O splendour! | |
| O sacred light eternal! who is he, | 140 |
| So pale with musing in Pierian shades, | |
| Or with that fount so lavishly imbued, | |
| Whose spirit should not fail him in the essay | |
| To represent thee such as thou didst seem, | |
| When under cope of the still-chiming Heaven | 145 |
| Thou gavest to open air thy charms reveal’d? | |
