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Home>>Poetry>>Poetry Collections>>Divine Comedy>>Heaven

Heaven- Cantos 1-3

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CANTO 1

He moves all things. His glory penetrates 
The universe, and here it shines the more 
And there the less, and of these various states 
The one where I was gets more light. I saw, 
There in the Empyrean, things which he 
Who comes back down from it has not the strength 
Or knowledge to record, for memory
Can’t follow intellect through the same length
Of journey, as it goes deep to come near
What it desires. But all I could retain
As treasure in my mind will now appear 
In this song. What’s imprinted in my brain 
Of the Holy Kingdom will be written here, 
Apollo, with your help. For this last burst 
Of my long labour, make of me the flask 
Of your power, which you always, from the first, 
Required, from all who took on such a task, 
Before you granted the loved laurel. One 
Peak of Parnassus has sufficed thus far--
The Muses my sole help to get things done— 
But now I need you, too, for now we are 
On the threshold of the last arena. Come 
Into my breast and breathe there as when you 
Flayed Marsyas the fool when he was dumb
Enough to challenge you. If you could do 
Enough for me so I might, Power Divine, 
Show forth the shadow of the paradise 
I have in mind, you’ll see me walk the line 
To your elected tree, take the device
Of leaves my theme and you have helped me earn, 
And put it on. So seldom has that crown 
Been made for Caesar’s or a poet’s turn 
At triumph, that the bough with the renown
Of Daphne surely gives Apollo joy 
When anybody wants it. A great flame 
Follows a little spark. Prayers may employ, 
After my time, great words, because that same 
Peak of Apollo, Cyrrha, meets the plea 
Of poets’ wishes. The spring equinox
Is just one of the entrances we see 
The sun come in at, but this one unlocks 
A better course. Four circles join with three 
Slant crosses, and the stars and tempers match 
To stamp the world’s wax in the fruitful style 
Of the world’s lantern. It undid the latch 
And entered very near that point, so while 
The morning happened there and evening here, 
That hemisphere was white and this was dark, 
And Beatrice turned left, and looked. For fear
Of blindness, never eagle risked that stark 
Exposure of the eye to the full sun 
As she did then; and, as the second ray, 
The one reflected, leaves the primary one 
At that point where they meet and climbs away 
Just as a turning pilgrim might have done,
So from her action mine was made, infused 
From her eyes into mine by how I thought, 
And, so unlike the way our eyes are used 
In mortal life, my glance, when it was caught,
Was held, fixed on the sun. Much is allowed
In that place, to our powers, which here is not, 
By virtue of the fact that there, unbowed, 
Man lived before he fell, and then forgot 
What once his senses knew. I had not gazed 
Long at that light, yet had gazed long enough 
To see the cataract of sparks that blazed
Like iron that the fire makes boiling stuff, 
When suddenly it seemed the day was joined 
By day, as if He who could will it so
Had gestured, and a second sun was coined 
To deck the sky. While upward from below 
The eyes of Beatrice were fixed solely on 
The eternal wheels, I had raised mine to her 
Now that from my high object they were gone, 
And at her aspect things weren’t what they were 
Within me, as when Glaucus ate the herb
That had revived the fish, and he assumed 
A sea god’s form. To pass beyond the curb 
Of mere humanity is a step doomed
Not to be put in words: let it suffice 
That the example should be put to him 
Graced with that history. Not in a trice 
Was man first formed. Dust made his every limb, 
But it was breath that made the living soul. 
Love, it was your breath. Were I just that part
Of me that you made last, and not the whole, 
Love, heaven-ruling, you would know. Your heart 
Of light raised me. Now your eternal wheel— 
Constructed and set spinning by desire--
Held me intent by what it made me feel, 
Its harmony. Your voices form a choir 
In tune, and spread among the spheres. The new 
Great sound and the great light soon kindled such 
Keenness of longing as I never knew 
Before, to seek the cause. To reach and touch 
And calm the turmoil in my mind, she who
Saw me as I did, spoke before I could 
Start asking. “Your false fancies make you dense. 
Thus blinded, you cannot see as you would
Without them. You are not on earth. Your sense 
Misleads you. Lightning, flying from its sphere 
Between the earth and moon, can’t run as fast 
As you regain your place, for you are near
To Heaven, which is your true land at last.” 
With these brief words she smiled at me, my doubt 
Might well have been dispelled, but soon I was 
In yet another question swathed about, 
And said “I was content just then, because 
Freed from a wonder, but I wonder now
That I, a solid body, may ascend 
Through realms of fire and thin air. Tell me how.” 
She sighed with pity as if moved to bend 
Her eyes on me just as a mother turns, 
To her delirious child, a look that rues 
The fate of all mankind, which never learns, 
And said “All things that are, contain and use 
Order among themselves. The universe, 
Therefore, in structure, is to God alike 
And in this primal part it must disburse--
While higher creatures watch it sort and strike— 
That stamp of excellence, which never dies: 
The very end for which the system’s made. 
And in this order, all things exercise
Their nature, to express their place and grade 
Nearer the sun or else, contrariwise, 
Far off from it. They move to different ports 
Across the sea of being, each with its
Own instinct. Entities of different sorts
Are all borne on, and one of them transmits
Fire to the moon—pale fire for mortal things.
And this one binds and unifies the earth. 
Not just for creatures with fur, scales or wings
And no brain, the bow shoots, but those whose birth 
Blessed them with force and intellect. The light 
Of providence that regulates all this 
Soothes with its glow the first step to the height, 
Inside which the quick spinning emphasis
Of the First Impulse reaches its great speed,
And that way now, appointed to that place
We’re sent by the bowstring, as if its need
Is to attain the mark of joy and grace. 
It’s true that often, as a shape does not 
Accord with art’s intention, for a lack 
Of workability in what it’s got
For substance, so sometimes the track 
Of creatures fit to follow a good course 
Can find their upward impulse turned aside, 
As we might see a fire endowed with force 
To climb, fall from the clouds, a shot gone wide,
And back to earth. False pleasure takes the blame. 
If I am right, I vow that your ascent 
Unfailingly to Heaven has the same 
Reason within it for astonishment
As when the average mountain spills a stream 
Falling from head to foot. You’d have more cause 
For wonder if, without a mote or beam 
Of hindrance, you had stayed below, all laws 
Defied, as if a living flame might seem
To stay still. You could truly marvel, then.”
She turned her face up to the sky again.

CANTO 2

You sailors in your little boats that trail 
My singing ship because so keen to hear, 
By now it might be time for you to sail 
Back till you see your shoreline reappear, 
For here the sea is deep, and if you lose 
My leading light just once, then steering clear 
Might bring bewilderment. So you must choose— 
Be warned, this sea was never sailed before. 
Minerva breathes, Apollo steers, the nine
Muses will navigate me by the store 
Of stars. You few that took this course of mine 
In early times, to reach for angels’ bread 
By which men live but can’t be satisfied 
Down here, you might indeed have forged ahead 
In your craft as the salt depths moved aside, 
Ploughing the furrow till the waves again 
Healed smooth. The glory-hungry Argonauts 
Who crossed to Colchis were not so stunned when 
They saw their Jason yoke the bulls. Your thoughts 
Will make theirs seem unruffled. The innate 
And everlasting thirst bore us away, 
The thirst for Heaven in God’s form. In spate 
We sped, almost as fast as one might say 
The star-wheel turned, while Beatrice gazed on high,
And I on her, and in the time a bolt 
That strikes a target takes to load and fly, 
I now saw I had hurtled to a halt 
When something marvellous drew my eyes from her 
To it. From her, my thoughts could not be hid.
She turned the fairest eyes that ever were 
To me, and said this, glad at what she did: 
“To God, who brings us here to the first star, 
The moon, direct your thanks.” It seemed to me 
A cloud now covered us, if clouds there are 
That can be dense yet still shine, solidly 
Consistent, smooth, like star-struck diamonds. 
And this eternal pearl now took us in,
As water will retain its seamless bonds
Pierced by a ray of light. How to begin? 
If I were body (and down here we can’t
Believe a body might be drawn into 
A body, or we would be what we aren’t) 
This should accentuate our wish anew 
Of climbing up to see that essence where 
Our nature joins to God. There will be seen 
All that we hold by faith. It will be there, 
Not demonstrated, but, for what we mean 
By knowing, known: known in itself. Which is 
The primal truth that men believe. And I:
“My lady, how the credit is all His 
That from the mortal world I reach the sky, 
I say from my devoted, thankful heart. 
But tell me why this body should be scarred 
By dark marks, which from Earth are seen as part 
Of Cain’s crown, made from thorns long, sharp and hard?” 
She smiled awhile, then said “If judgement errs 
In mortals, when the key of sense won’t fit 
The lock, be not amazed if it occurs, 
From now on, that your reason’s winged remit
Falls short of what the senses apprehend.
Just keep the shafts of wonder out of it. 
Let them fly past, there’s nothing to defend. 
All you need do is tell me what you think.” 
And I: “Presumably that which might seem 
Up here to be divine means sunrays sink 
Into the rare. But from the dense they gleam 
Reflected.” She: “Assuredly you’ll find 
That your belief is deep in error drowned. 
If only you admit into your mind
The following objections, which are sound. 
The eighth sphere shows us many different lights: 
The fixed stars, which, if they are judged by size, 
Or quality, appear as different sights. 
If all those, like the moon, should harmonise 
Their luminosity from dense or sparse 
Collections of material, then each 
Would have one virtue, in a single class 
Distributed, as qualities might reach 
From more to less through equal on the scale.
But that’s absurd, for different virtues form 
From principles, and your thought would entail 
That only one of them provides the norm. 
Again, if rarity should be the source
Of that obscurity you ask about, 
The moon would either have, in parts, a course 
Of emptiness right through it, or, without 
Much difference from the way that lean and fat 
Are portioned in a body, it would stack 
The pages, in its volume, lying flat
One on the other: thin white and thick black. 
But in the first case, at the sun’s eclipse 
We’d see the light shine through the moon, as through 
Rare stuff. The second case lives on the lips 
For little longer, since in this way, too, 
Your view is false. If rarity falls short 
Of going right through, there must be a mark 
Where density ensures the ray is caught
And thrown back, giving light instead of dark,
Just as a colour is sent back through glass
With hidden lead behind. You might contend
Those rays shows dimmer when they have to pass 
Up from the depths than those which must descend 
Less deeply to encounter a hard place— 
Experiment, however, will remove
Such an objection, and from your false case 
Release you: for experiment must prove 
Always to be the spring that feeds the streams 
Of your art. Take three mirrors. First you set 
Two the same distance from you, so it seems
A window lies between them where is met 
The third one by your eyes from where it stands 
Yet further off. Then have, behind your back, 
A lamp set up by which those two demands 
For light are satisfied. See how the track 
Rebounds of each beam. Though the one that comes 
The furthest may look smaller, you will see 
It shines with equal brightness. What benumbs 
Your mind, now finally of error free, 
Is that the truth has not yet taken hold.
Think of the snow when smitten with warm rays, 
Bare of its former colour and its cold: 
I want to fill your bare mind with a blaze 
Of living light that sparkles in your eyes.
Within the heaven of divine peace spins 
The Primum Mobile, whose virtue ties 
Together all the being that begins 
And ends within it. The next heaven, hung 
With many lights, and called the Starry Sphere, 
Assigns that being severally among
Different existences, so they appear 
Many and various but are contained 
Within its single virtue. Seven more 
Heavens exist, and all of them ordained 
To deal out separate qualities they share
Within, to suit their ends and good effect. 
These organs and the universe proceed, 
As you see, grade by grade, in due respect 
Receiving from above all that they need 
To operate below. Observe well how
I pass thus to the truth you seek, just so 
You may know how to ford the river now 
Alone. I give you grounds for where to go. 
Now, then, your final step: the Holy Wheels. 
Their motion, and their virtues, must derive— 
As from the leaping sparks and ringing peals 
Of constant hammering the smiths contrive 
Their iron work—from Blessed Movers. These 
Are the angelic orders, and the realm
Made fair by all those flaring entities 
Is shaped by the profound mind at the helm,
And of that stamp becomes itself the seal: 
And as the soul in your dust is diffused 
Through different body parts each built to deal 
With different faculties diversely used,
So the intelligence unfolds its hoard, 
Throughout the star-field to be multiplied, 
Which, wheeling always in its one accord, 
From different virtues forms divine alloy 
With any precious body it makes quick,
And with which, as in you, it will enjoy 
Deep bonds, designed to strengthen as they stick. 
So, by the joyous nature when it springs, 
The mingled virtue shines through like the flash 
In our eyes when we think of joyful things. 
And therefore the whole range of flame to ash 
Dividing light from light, comes otherwise 
From how you thought. Not how dense or how rare, 
But how glad are the angels, gives our eyes 
Our vision of the dark and bright up there--
Proof that such excellence rules everywhere.”

CANTO 3

​
The sun which first had warmed my breast with love, 
By proof and refutation had shown me 
The truth’s fair face, and I raised—not above 
The level needed if I wished to free
My mouth for speech—my head, just to confess 
Myself corrected and assured. But then 
A sight appeared that left me powerless, 
Glued to it, so I couldn’t think again
Of what I had confessed: the words had fled.
It was as if through smooth, transparent glass,
Or else through clear, still water whose creek-bed 
Is not so deep our faces fail to pass 
Back up to us so faintly that a pearl 
Set on a pallid brow is not more slow
To reach us from the image of a girl, 
That I saw many faces, poised as though 
Eager to speak. I then made a mistake 
Like that which joined the man and spring, and lit 
Tinder between them that brought love awake,
Except my error was the opposite: 
Narcissus was more credulous than me. 
I saw these faces and I took them for 
Reflections, so I turned my eyes to see 
Where they might really stand, and what I saw
Was nothing, so once more it came to be 
That I looked straight into the brilliant light 
Of my sweet guide, her holy eyes aglow 
With her smile. She said “Do not doubt it right 
That I smile at your childishness, for so
Reluctant is it still to set its foot 
On truth, that it feels bound to turn you back 
To emptiness. But these are real, all put 
In this place for a failure, for their lack 
Of loyalty to vows. So speak with them, 
Hear and believe. A true light gives them peace, 
But, simply by that function, must condemn 
The peaceful ones to keep turned without cease 
Their steps towards it.” I approached the shade 
That most seemed keen to talk, and I said this,
Almost consumed by my will: “Spirit made 
To know, in this eternal life of bliss, 
The sweetness of its beams—a taste which must 
Be tasted first before it is conceived— 
It would be kind of you if you could just 
Render my curiosity relieved 
By telling me your name and of your fate.” 
And she, with smiling eyes of eagerness: 
“Our charity shuts no doors, bars no gate, 
Against right Will, for our will can’t be less
Than His, who wills His whole court to be as 
Himself. A virgin sister when I breathed, 
I was—and you will find your memory has 
A picture which, although now I am wreathed 
With greater fairness, you will see is mine— 
Piccarda Donati. I am put here
Will all these other blessed ones, and in line 
With their lot I, too, tarry in the sphere 
Of smallest orbit and therefore least fast, 
The slow sky of the moon. Our sentiments,
Which nothing sets ablaze save, first and last,
To please the Holy Ghost, find joy intense 
In our conformity to His regime, 
And this position which I occupy, 
As low down on the scale as it might seem, 
Is given us for failing to comply 
Sufficiently in duty to our vows.”
And then I said to her: “Your wondrous face 
That I see now, diversity endows 
With inner light of an amazing grace
Divine beyond my knowledge, changing you 
From what you were, but now there’s what you say 
To help me recollect what I once knew. 
Yet tell me: happy as you are to stay 
In this sphere, do you not desire a post 
Up higher, where you can see more, and feel 
More loved yet?” With the others in that host 
She smiled at this, and answered with such real 
Gladness she seemed to burn in love’s first fire. 
“Brother, our charity is calmed by will,
Willing just what we have, with no desire 
For more. If we wished to be higher still, 
Then our desire would fail to jibe with His 
Will that appoints us here. Such, you will find, 
Cannot hold in these circles, if it is
Necessity, clear to the thinking mind, 
To be in charity, and if you well 
Study its nature. No indeed, the gist 
Itself of this blessed state is: we compel 
Ourselves at all times wholly to exist
Within the will divine, so that our wills 
Are thus themselves made one. Therefore our rank 
From height to height throughout the realm instils 
Pleasure in all of it, and so we thank 
The King who wills us to His will. For in 
His will is our peace. His will is the sea 
Towards which all things move just to begin--
The souls it makes and all the progeny 
Of Nature. For it is creative twice, 
In both these ways.” She made it clear to me
That Heaven everywhere is paradise, 
Although the Great Good’s favour does not rain 
In one mode. As, when one food might suffice 
Yet craving for another may remain, 
We thank our stars and yet we are bereft— 
As when that happens, so did I, with speech 
And gesture, strive to hear the weft 
And warp—the shuttle driven through to reach 
Its goal—of what the vow was she had left 
Neglected. “Perfect life and its reward,”
She said, “place in high Heaven great St. Clare, 
Whose rule in your world binds with one accord 
Those novices in robe and veil who swear 
That until death they’ll always wake and sleep 
With that Bridegroom who sanctions any vow 
Made out of charity and aimed to keep
Him pleased. To follow her was why and how 
I fled, a young girl, from the world, and wrapped 
Her habit round me, dedicating all 
My life to her chaste way. But I was trapped:
Men used to evil got in through the wall 
Of good, and from the cloister I was torn— 
And what my life was afterwards, God knows. 
But see this other splendour here like dawn 
Appearing to you on my right, who glows 
With all the light of our sphere. She, too, was 
A sister, and the same way lost her veil 
And safety, but she never, just because 
She’d seen the world triumph and custom fail, 
Abjured the inward veil that soothed her heart.
This is the light of that great Constance, she 
Who bore, when brought back from her life apart, 
The third and last child with the pedigree
Of emperor, and the sire was that false start, 
The second Swabian quick breeze to blow.” 
She spoke thus, then began to sing the hymn 
Ave Maria, and, still singing so,
Went down like something heavy growing dim 
Into the depths. My sight went after her, 
As far as it could plunge. Then it returned,
When it had lost her, back where my eyes were 
Faced with the greater mark. And there she burned: 
All I could see was Beatrice, nor could move 
My gaze away, although it hurt my eyes 
So much at first I feared that it might prove 
Too hard to go on looking, or devise 
Questions whose shyness she would not despise.

Extracts

Hell - Cantos 1-3
Picture
Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
Picture
Heaven - Cantos 1-3
Picture

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    • Epic Poems >
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