The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

and Nocera their grievous yoke.
From out that slope, there where it breaketh most
Its steepness, rose upon the world a sun1459
As this one does sometimes from out the Ganges;1460
Therefore let him who speaketh of that place,
Say not Ascesi, for he would say little,1461
But Orient, if he properly would speak.
He was not yet far distant from his rising
Before he had begun to make the earth
Some comfort from his mighty virtue feel.
For he in youth his father’s wrath incurred
For certain Dame, to whom, as unto death,1462
The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock;
And was before his spiritual court1463
Et coram patre unto her united;
Then day by day more fervently he loved her.
She, reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure,
One thousand and one hundred years and more,1464
Waited without a suitor till he came.
Naught it availed to hear, that with Amyclas1465
Found her unmoved at sounding of his voice
He who struck terror into all the world;
Naught it availed being constant and undaunted,
So that, when Mary still remained below,
She mounted up with Christ upon the cross.
But that too darkly I may not proceed,
Francis and Poverty for these two lovers1466
Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse.
Their concord and their joyous semblances,
The love, the wonder, and the sweet regard,
They made to be the cause of holy thoughts;
So much so that the venerable Bernard1467
First bared his feet, and after so great peace
Ran, and, in running, thought himself too slow.
O wealth unknown! O veritable good!
Giles bares his feet, and bares his feet Sylvester1468
Behind the bridegroom, so doth please the bride!
Then goes his way that father and that master,
He and his Lady and that family
Which now was girding on the humble cord;
Nor cowardice of heart weighed down his brow
At being son of Peter Bernardone,1469
Nor for appearing marvellously scorned;
But regally his hard determination
To Innocent he opened, and from him
Received the primal seal upon his Order.1470
After the people mendicant increased
Behind this man, whose admirable life
Better in glory of the heavens were sung,1471
Incoronated with a second crown
Was through Honorius by the Eternal Spirit1472
The holy purpose of this Archimandrite.1473
And when he had, through thirst of martyrdom,
In the proud presence of the Sultan preached1474
Christ and the others who came after him,
And, finding for conversion too unripe
The folk, and not to tarry there in vain,1475
Returned to fruit of the Italic grass,
On the rude rock ’twixt Tiber and the Arno1476
From Christ did he receive the final seal,
Which during two whole years his members bore.
When He, who chose him unto so much good,
Was pleased to draw him up to the reward
That he had merited by being lowly,
Unto his friars, as to the rightful heirs,
His most dear Lady did he recommend,
And bade that they should love her faithfully;
And from her bosom the illustrious soul
Wished to depart, returning to its realm,
And for its body wished no other bier.1477
Think now what man was he, who was a fit1478
Companion over the high seas to keep
The bark of Peter to its proper bearings.
And this man was our Patriarch; hence whoever
Doth follow him as he commands can see
That he is laden with good merchandise.
But for new pasturage his flock has grown
So greedy, that it is impossible
They be not scattered over fields diverse;
And in proportion as his sheep remote
And vagabond go farther off from him,
More void of milk return they to the fold.
Verily some there are that fear a hurt,
And keep close to the shepherd; but so few,
That little cloth doth furnish forth their hoods.
Now if my utterance be not indistinct,
If thine own hearing hath attentive been,
If thou recall to mind what I have said,
In part contented shall thy wishes be;
For thou shalt see the plant that’s chipped away,1479
And the rebuke that lieth in the words,1480
‘Where well one fattens, if he strayeth not.’ ” Canto XII

St. Buonaventura recounts the life of St. Dominic.

Soon as the blessed flame had taken up1481
The final word to give it utterance,
Began the holy millstone to revolve,1482
And in its gyre had not turned wholly round,
Before another in a ring enclosed it,
And motion joined to motion, song to song;
Song that as greatly doth transcend our Muses,
Our Sirens, in those dulcet clarions,
As primal splendor that which is reflected.
And as are spanned athwart a tender cloud
Two rainbows parallel and like in color,1483
When Juno to her handmaid gives command,1484
(The one without born of the one within,
Like to the speaking of that vagrant one1485
Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapors,)
And make the people here, through covenant1486
God set with Noah, presageful of the world
That shall no more be covered with a flood,
In such wise of those sempiternal roses
The garlands twain encompassed us about,
And thus the outer to the inner answered.
After the dance, and other grand rejoicings,
Both of the singing, and the flaming forth
Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,
Together, at once, with one accord had stopped,
(Even as the eyes, that, as volition moves them,
Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)
Out of the heart of one of the new lights
There came a voice, that needle to the star
Made me appear in turning thitherward.
And it began: “The love that makes me fair1487
Draws me to speak about the other leader,