“My son,
  Here torment thou may’st feel, but canst not death. 
  Remember thee, remember thee, if I
  Safe e’en on Geryon brought thee; now I come
  More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now? 
  Of this be sure; though in its womb that flame
  A thousand years contained thee, from thy head
  No hair should perish.  If thou doubt my truth,
  Approach; and with thy hands thy vesture’s hem
  Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief. 
  Lay now all fear, oh! lay all fear aside. 
  Turn hither, and come onward undismayed.” 
    I still, though conscience urged, no step advanced.

* * * * *

  Into the fire before me then he walked: 
  And Statius, who erewhile no little space
  Had parted us, he prayed to come behind. 
    I would have cast me into molten glass
  To cool me, when I entered; so intense
  Raged the conflagrant mass.  The sire beloved,
  To comfort me, as he proceeded, still
  Of Beatrice talked.  “Her eyes,” saith he,
  “E’en now I seem to view.”  From the other side
  A voice, that sang, did guide us; and the voice
  Following, with heedful ear, we issued forth,
  There where the path led upward.  “Come,” we heard,
  “Come, blessed of my Father.”  Such the sounds,
  That hailed us from within a light, which shone
  So radiant, I could not endure the view. 
  “The sun,” it added, “hastes:  and evening comes. 
  Delay not:  ere the western sky is hung
  With blackness, strive ye for the pass.”  Our way
  Upright within the rock arose, and faced
  Such part of heaven, that from before my steps
  The beams were shrouded of the sinking sun.

* * * * *

PARADISE.

SIN AND REDEMPTION.

CANTO VII.

                               What I have heard,
  Is plain, thou say’st:  but wherefore God this way
  For our redemption chose, eludes my search. 
    “Brother! no eye of man not perfected,
  Nor fully ripened in the flame of love,
  May fathom this decree.  It is a mark,
  In sooth, much aimed at, and but little kenned: 
  And I will therefore show thee why such way
  Was worthiest.  The celestial love, that spurns
  All envying in its bounty, in itself
  With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth
  All beauteous things eternal.  What distils
  Immediate thence, no end of being knows;
  Bearing its seal immutably imprest. 
  Whatever thence immediate falls, is free,
  Free wholly, uncontrollable by power
  Of each thing new:  by such conformity
  More grateful to its author, whose bright beams,
  Though all partake their shining, yet in those
  Are liveliest, which resemble him the most. 
  These tokens of pre-eminence on man
  Largely bestowed, if any of them fail,
  He needs must forfeit his nobility,