Thereafter, on all sides of it, appeared My master yet had uttered not a word, He cried aloud; "Quick, quick, and bow the knee! Behold the Angel of God! fold up thy hands! Henceforward shalt thou see such officers' "See, how he scorns all human arguments, So that no oar he wants, nor other sail Than his own wings, between so distant shores! See, how he holds them, pointed straight to heaven, Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!" And then, as nearer and more near us came But down I cast it; and he came to shore Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot! And more than a hundred spirits sat within. “In exitu Israel out of Egypt! "" Then made he sign of holy rood upon them, THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE. FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO, XXVIII. LONGING already to search in and round Which to the eyes tempered the new-born day, Withouten more delay I left the bank, Crossing the level country slowly, slowly, A gently-breathing air, that no mutation Whereat the tremulous branches readily Did all of them bow downward towards that side Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain; Yet not from their upright direction bent But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime Singing received they in the midst of foliage That made monotonous burden to their rhymes, Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells, Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi, When Eolus unlooses the Sirocco. Already my slow steps had led me on Could see no more the place where I had entered. And lo! my farther course cut off a river, Which, towards the left hand, with its little waves, Bent down the grass, that on its margin sprang. All waters that on earth most limpid are, Would seem to have within themselves some mix ture, Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal, Although it moves on with a brown, brown current, Under the shade perpetual, that never Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. |