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Dante – The Divine Comedy

'We have risen up to the seventh splendour
Which, under the breast of the blazing lion
Now sends its beams down mixed with its virtue

Fix your mind on what your eyes see
And make them mirrors to the figure which will
Make its appearance to you in this mirror'

….................

Within the crystal which, circling round the world
Carries the name of its beloved leader
Under whom every malice lay dead

The colour of gild, with refulgent rays
I saw a ladder which was erected aloft
So far, my sight could not follow it

I saw too, coming down the steps,
So many splendours, I thought all the stars
Which shine in heaven were pouring down there

….....

Then some go off and do not reappear
While others return to where they started from
And others stay wheeling in the air

…...

'And tell me why in this circle the sweet
Symphony of paradise is silent
Though below in the others it sounds so fervently'

'You have mortal hearing, as you have mortal sight'
He answered me 'so here is no singing
For the same reason that Beatrice has not smiled

I came so far down the rungs of the ladder
Only in order to give you happiness
With what I say and with the light  which cloaks me;

Nor did a greater love make me more willing;
For up there love as great as mine or greater
Burns, as the flames by their brightness show.