“Thou, to abate thy wonder, note that none Bears rule in earth, and its frail family Are therefore wand’rers. Yet before the date, When through the hundredth in his reck’ning drops Pale January must be shor’d aside From winter’s calendar, these heav’nly spheres Shall roar so loud, that fortune shall be fain To turn the poop, where she hath now the prow; So that the fleet run onward; and true fruit, Expected long, shall crown at last the bloom!” CANTO XXVII So she who doth imparadise my soul, Had drawn the veil from off our pleasant life, And bar’d the truth of poor mortality; When lo! as one who, in a mirror, spies The shining of a flambeau at his back, Lit sudden ore he deem of its approach, And turneth to resolve him, if the glass Have told him true, and sees the record faithful As note is to its metre; even thus, I well remember, did befall to me, Looking upon the beauteous eyes, whence love Had made the leash to take me. As I turn’d; And that, which, in their circles, none who spies, Can miss of, in itself apparent, struck On mine; a point I saw, that darted light So sharp, no lid, unclosing, may bear up Against its keenness. The least star we view From hence, had seem’d a moon, set by its side, As star by side of star. And so far off, Perchance, as is the halo from the light Which paints it, when most dense the vapour spreads, There wheel’d about the point a circle of fire, More rapid than the motion, which first girds The world. Then, circle after circle, round Enring’d each other; till the seventh reach’d Circumference so ample, that its bow, Within the span of Juno’s messenger, lied scarce been held entire. Beyond the sev’nth, Follow’d yet other two. And every one, As more in number distant from the first, Was tardier in motion; and that glow’d With flame most pure, that to the sparkle’ of truth Was nearest, as partaking most, methinks, Of its reality. The guide belov’d Saw me in anxious thought suspense, and spake: “Heav’n, and all nature, hangs upon that point. The circle thereto most conjoin’d observe; And know, that by intenser love its course Is to this swiftness wing’d.” To whom I thus: “It were enough; nor should I further seek, Had I but witness’d order, in the world Appointed, such as in these wheels is seen. But in the sensible world such diff’rence is, That is each round shows more divinity, As each is wider from the centre. Hence, If in this wondrous and angelic temple, That hath for confine only light and love, My wish may have completion I must know, Wherefore such disagreement is between Th’ exemplar and its copy: for myself, Contemplating, I fail to pierce the cause.”