THE VISION OF DANTE

Upon my breast there weighed ten thousand waves

Of black, unthinkable despair; I floated

In atmosphere of leaden density,

In atmosphere that burned with heat, yet glowed not —

Then scintillating stars with vivid flashes,

Like sparks from steel struck in a mine's thick blackness,

Tortured my eyes with dazzling glare; and then

Arose a rumbling as of crashing tombs

When the dead waken. Gone my will, my power.

I could nor feel, nor move, nor cry. Creation

Seemed rending downward through eternal space.

The thundering ceased, there shot a wail of pain,

A wail more anguished than arose from Troy

When Hector fell. Fainter, it grew, receding

Through the spheres. The meteors flashed no more.

I floated upward on invisible wings;

The distance purpled in the glow of dawn;

Funereal clouds melted to shimmering gray;

And far away the notes of music sounded,

Echoing onward to Infinity —

Music celestial of that choir of Heaven

Which sings unendingly about His throne.

Distant, it floated, yet how pure, and clearer

Than clear, rebounding Alpine notes. A present

Foretaste of the sublime beatitudes;

And o'er my visual sky moved forms of beings,

Dark forms in solemn, slow-ascending flight

Toward that rich, purple glow. The vision changed:

So pure the light that darkness sealed my eyelids!

So grand the symphony, I could not hear!

The whole cathedral-vault of Heaven rang

In awful majesty of perfect tone;

And‘ past my mortal vision, in endless tide,

Flowing, and flowing upward toward the Light,

Angels innumerable, many-hued,

Winged on, majestic, to the music's time,

Winged on and sang a ceaseless Hallelujah —