n and earth
For which there erst had been so long a yearning.'"
(XXIII, 28.)

After Christ withdraws to the Empyrean the poet finds that he has been
so much strengthened and enlightened by the Vision that increased power
of sight is given to him again to behold the smile of his guide. She
says to him:

"Open thine eyes and look at what I am
Thou has beheld such things, that strong enough
Hast thou become to tolerate my smile."
(XXIII, 46.)

He continues in ecstasy to gaze upon her surpassing beauty until she
bids him look upon the "meadow of flowers," the angels and saints:

"Why doth my face so much enamor thee,
That to the garden fair thou turnest not,
Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?
There is the Rose in which the Word Divine
Became incarnate; there the lilies are
By whose perfume the good way was discovered."
(XXIII, 70.)

The lilies are the apostles, the Rose the Blessed Virgin Mary. "Mary,"
says Cardinal Newman, "is the most beautiful flower that ever was seen
in the spiritual world. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers and
therefore she is called Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all
flowers that most beautiful." Dante says: "The name of the fair flower
that I e'er invoke morning and night utterly enthralled my soul to gaze
upon the greater fire." Now with joy the poet sees the coronation by the
spirits of Mary, Mystical Rose, and then his eyes follow her as she
mounts to the Empyrean in the wake of her divine Son while the gleaming
saints sing her praises in the _Regina Coeli_.

The eight Heavens through which the poet has come, have been so many
stages of preparation for the final vision of Paradise. His eyes have
been gradually gaining strength by gazing upon miracles of light and
beauty and by seeing truth embodied in many representative forms to fit
him finally to see God in His Essence. Before that consummation,
however, one more preparatory vision is necessary. The poet must first
see the symbolic image of God. "What!" you may exclaim, "will Dante be
audacious enough to attempt to picture the Invisible Himself? Granted
that 'he is all wings and pure imagination' can he hope to image the
Incomprehensible Being 'who only hath immortality and inhabiteth light
inaccessible, whom no man hath seen nor can see?' (I Tim. VI, 16). Will
he not defeat his purpose by employing a symbol circumscribing Him who
is beyond circumscription?" But