The third part of the Divine Comedy is the vision of Paradise. Dante's Paradise is divided into ten heavens, or spheres. Through these in succession the poet is conducted by Beatrice, until in the tenth heaven, or the Empyrean, he comes into the visible presence of God. I. The Visible Presence. From the Paradiso. O eternal beam! (Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar?) Yield me again some little particle Of what thou then appearedst; give my tongue Power' but to leave one sparkle of thy glory, Unto the race to come' that shall not lose Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught Of memory in me, and endure to hear The record sound in this unequal strain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . O grace, unenvying of thy boon! that gavest Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken On the everlasting splendour, that I look'd, While sight was unconsumed; and, in that depth, Saw in one volume clasp'd of love, whate'er The universe unfolds; all properties Of substance and of accident, beheld, Compounded, yet one individual light The whole. . . . . . . . . . . . . . In that abyss Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem'd, methought, Three orbs of triple hue,[1] clipt in one bound: And, from another, one reflected seem'd, As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third Seem'd fire, breathed equally from both. O speech! How feeble and how faint art thou, to give Conception birth. Yet this to what I saw Is less than little. O eternal light! Sole in thyself that dwell'st; and of thyself Sole understood' past' present, or to come; Thou smile'st, on that circling, which in thee Seem'd as reflected splendour, while I mused; For I therein, methought, in its own hue Beheld our image painted: stedfastly I therefore pored upon the view. As one, Who versed in geometric lore, would fain Measure the circle; and, though pondering long And deeply, that beginning, which he needs, Finds not: e'en such was I, intent to scan The novel wonder, and trace out the form, How to the circle fitted, and therein How placed: but the flight was not for my wing: Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, And, in the spleen, unfolded what is sought. Here vigour fail'd the towering fantasy: But yet the will roll'd onward, like a wheel In even motion' by the love impell'd, That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars. [1] Three orbs of triple hue. The Trinity.