The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
To intellectual power, which mist and wind
Moved by control which faculties such can find,
And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
The space from Protomagno to where tower
The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
"The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
Towards the royal river, so it flowed
That over every obstacle wild it rode.
The robust river found my stiffened frame
Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
"I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
_Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V._
BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they
talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the
greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower
of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
For a long space its fiery shield could try:
E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
Which from those hands angelical upward played,
And roseate all the car triumphal made,
And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
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