thee through grace for so much power
That with his eyes he may uplift himself
Higher towards the uttermost salvation.
And I, who never burned for my own seeing
More than I do for his, all of my prayers
Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short,
That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud
Of his mortality so with thy prayers,
That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed.
Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst
Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve
After so great a vision his affections.
Let thy protection conquer human movements;
See Beatrice and all the blessed ones
My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!
The eyes beloved and revered of God,
Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us
How grateful unto her are prayers devout;
Then unto the Eternal Light they turned,
On which it is not credible could be
By any creature bent an eye so clear."
(XXXIII, 22.)

The prayer is granted. "My vision becoming undimmed, more and more
entered the beam of light which in itself is Truth." (XXXIII, 52.) The
veil is removed. He gazes into the limitless depths of the Divinity. He
enjoys the Beatific Vision.

First he sees by immediate intuition the Divine Essence in its creative
power, the examplar of all substances, modes and accidents united in
harmony and love; then he beholds the Creator Himself and all the
divine perfections and all the eternal plans of God. Clear to the poet
now is the truth of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity unveiled in
circles of light like rainbows of green, white and red of equal
circumference, the Second being as it were the splendor of the First and
the Third emanating from the two others. Unravelled also is the mystery
of the two natures human and divine, in the divine person of Christ seen
in human form in the second luminous circle. But the Vision is so far
above the poet's memory to retain or his speech to express that he
cannot find words to make intelligible the splendor he beholds or the
rapture he experiences.

"Oh grace abounding, wherein I presumed to fix my look on the eternal
light so long that I consumed my sight thereon! Within its depths I saw
ingathered, bound by love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the
universe; substance and accidents and their relations, as though
together fused, after such fashion that what I tell of is one simple
flame.

"In the profound and shining b