The name of the fair flower which I ever invoke both morning and evening, wholly constrained my mind to gaze upon the greater fire.[1] And when the form and the glory of the living star, which up. there surpasses as here below it surpassed, were depicted in both my eyes, through the mid heavens a torch, formed in a circle in fashion of a crown, descended, and engirt it, and revolved around it. Whatever melody sounds sweetest here below, and to itself most draws the soul, would seem a cloud which, rent apart, thunders, compared with the sound of that lyre wherewith was crowned the beauteous sapphire by which the brightest Heaven is ensapphired. “I am angelic Love, and I circle round the lofty joy which breathes from the bosom which was the hostelry of our desire; and I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while thou shalt follow thy Son and make the supreme sphere more divine because thou enterest it.” Thus the circling melody sealed itself up, and all the other lights made resound the name of Mary. [1] The Virgin,—Rosa mistica,—the brightest of all the host that remained. The royal mantle[1] of all the volumes[2] of the world, which is most fervid and most quickened in the breath of God and in His ways, had its inner shore so distant above us that sight of it, there where I was, did not yet appear to me. Therefore my eyes had not the power to follow the incoronate flame, which mounted upward following her own seed. And as a little child which, when it has taken the milk, stretches its arms toward its mother, through the spirit that flames up outwardly, each of these white splendors stretched upward with its summit, so that the deep aflection which they had for Mary was manifest to me. Then they remained there in ray sight, singing “Regina coeli “ so sweetly that never has the delight departed from me. Oh how great is the plenty that is heaped up in those most rich chests which were good laborers in sowing here below! Here they live and enjoy the treasure that was acquired while weeping in the exile of Babylon, where the gold was left aside.[3] Here triumphs, under the high Son of God and of Mary, in his victory, both with the ancient and with the new council, he who holds the keys of such glory.[4] [l] The Primum Mobile, the ninth Heaven, which revolves around all the others. [2] The revolving spheres. [3] Despising the treasures of the world, in the Babylonish exile of this life, they laid up for themselves treasures in Heaven. [4] St. Peter. CANTO XXIV. St. Peter examines Dante concerning Faith, and approves his answer.