O Paradise, O Paradise,
    I greatly long to see
  The special place my dearest Lord
    Is destining for me;
      Where loyal hearts and true
        Stand ever in the light,
      All rapture through and through,
        In God’s most holy sight.

  O Paradise, O Paradise,
    I feel ’twill not be long;
  Patience!  I almost think I hear
    Faint fragments of thy song;
      Where loyal hearts and true
        Stand ever in the light,
      All rapture through and through,
        In God’s most holy sight.

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER.

FROM “THE DIVINE COMEDY.”

* * * * *

HELL.

    INSCRIPTION OVER THE GATE.

    CANTO III.

  “Through me you pass into the city of woe: 
  Through me you pass into eternal pain: 
  Through me among the people lost for aye. 
  Justice the founder of my fabric moved: 
  To rear me was the task of power divine,
  Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. 
  Before me things create were none, save things
  Eternal, and eternal I endure. 
  All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

* * * * *

PURGATORY.

PRAYER.

CANTO VI.

                            When I was freed
  From all those spirits, who prayed for others’ prayers
  To hasten on their state of blessedness;
  Straight I began:  “O thou, my luminary! 
  It seems expressly in thy text denied,
  That Heaven’s supreme decree can ever bend
  To supplication; yet with this design
  Do these entreat.  Can then their hope be vain? 
  Or is thy saying not to be revealed?”
  He thus to me:  “Both what I write is plain,
  And these deceived not in their hope; if well
  Thy mind consider, that the sacred height
  Of judgment doth not stoop, because love’s flame
  In a short moment all fulfils, which he,
  Who sojourns here, in right should satisfy. 
  Besides, when I this point concluded thus,
  By praying no defect could be supplied: 
  Because the prayer had none access to God. 
  Yet in this deep suspicion rest thou not
  Contented, unless she assure thee so,
  Who betwixt truth and mind infuses light: 
  I know not if thou take me right; I mean
  Beatrice.  Her thou shalt behold above,
  Upon this mountain’s crown, fair seat of joy.”

* * * * *

    PRAYER OF PENITENTS.

    CANTO XI.

  “O thou Almighty Father! who dost make
  The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confined,
  But that, with love intenser, there thou view’st
  Thy primal effluence; hallowed be thy name: 
  Join, each created being, to extol
  Thy might; for worthy humblest thanks and praise
  Is thy blest Spirit.  May thy kingdom’s