“I see, thou sayst, the air, the fire I see,
The earth and water, and all things of them
Compounded, to corruption turn, and soon
Dissolve.  Yet these were also things create,
Because, if what were told me, had been true
They from corruption had been therefore free.

“The angels, O my brother! and this clime
Wherein thou art, impassible and pure,
I call created, as indeed they are
In their whole being.  But the elements,
Which thou hast nam’d, and what of them is made,
Are by created virtue’ inform’d:  create
Their substance, and create the’ informing virtue
In these bright stars, that round them circling move
The soul of every brute and of each plant,
The ray and motion of the sacred lights,
With complex potency attract and turn. 
But this our life the’ eternal good inspires
Immediate, and enamours of itself;
So that our wishes rest for ever here.

“And hence thou mayst by inference conclude
Our resurrection certain, if thy mind
Consider how the human flesh was fram’d,
When both our parents at the first were made.”

CANTO VIII

The world was in its day of peril dark
Wont to believe the dotage of fond love
From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls
In her third epicycle, shed on men
By stream of potent radiance:  therefore they
Of elder time, in their old error blind,
Not her alone with sacrifice ador’d
And invocation, but like honours paid
To Cupid and Dione, deem’d of them
Her mother, and her son, him whom they feign’d
To sit in Dido’s bosom:  and from her,
Whom I have sung preluding, borrow’d they
The appellation of that star, which views,
Now obvious and now averse, the sun.

I was not ware that I was wafted up
Into its orb; but the new loveliness
That grac’d my lady, gave me ample proof
That we had entered there.  And as in flame
A sparkle is distinct, or voice in voice
Discern’d, when one its even tenour keeps,
The other comes and goes; so in that light
I other luminaries saw, that cours’d
In circling motion, rapid more or less,
As their eternal phases each impels.

Never was blast from vapour charged with cold,
Whether invisible to eye or no,
Descended with such speed, it had not seem’d
To linger in dull tardiness, compar’d
To those celestial lights, that tow’rds us came,
Leaving the circuit of their joyous ring,
Conducted by the lofty seraphim. 
And after them, who in the van appear’d,
Such an hosanna sounded, as hath left
Desire, ne’er since extinct in me, to hear
Renew’d the strain.  Then parting from the rest
One near us drew, and sole began:  “We all
Are ready at thy pleasure, well dispos’d
To do thee gentle service.  We are they,
To whom thou in the world erewhile didst Sing
’O ye! whose intellectual ministry
Moves the third heaven!’ and in one orb we roll,
One motion, one impulse, with those who rule
Princedoms in heaven; yet are of love so full,
That to please thee ’t will be as sweet to rest.”