[3] “Blessed thou that comest.” [4] “Oh, give lilies with full hands;” words from the Aeneid, vi. 884, sung by the angels. I have seen ere now at the beginning of the day the eastern region all rosy, while the rest of heaven was beautiful with fair clear sky; and the face of the sun rise shaded, so that through the tempering of vapors the eye sustained it a long while. Thus within a cloud of flowers, which from the angelic hands was ascending, and falling down again within and without, a lady, with olive wreath above a white veil, appeared to me, robed with the color of living flame beneath a green mantle.[1] And my spirit that now for so long a time had not been broken down, trembling with amazement at her presence, without having more knowledge by the eyes, through occult virtue that proceeded from her, felt the great potency of ancient love. [1] The olive is the symbol of wisdom and of peace the three colors are those of Faith, Charity, and Hope. Soon as upon my sight the lofty virtue smote, which already had transfixed me ere I was out of boyhood, I turned me to the left with the confidence with which the little child runs to his mother when he is frightened, or when he is troubled, to say to Virgil, “Less than a drachm of blood remains in me that doth not tremble; I recognize the signals of the ancient flame,”[1]—but Virgil had left us deprived of himself; Virgil, sweetest Father, Virgil to whom I for my salvation gave me. Nor did all which the ancient mother lost[2] avail unto my cheeks, cleansed with dew,[3] that they should not turn dark again with tears. [1] “Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.”—Aeneid, iv. 23. [2] All the beauty of Paradise which Eve lost. [3] See Canto I. “Dante, though Virgil be gone away, weep not yet, weep not yet, for it behoves thee to weep by another sword.”