him. He will be thrust down into the pit with Simon
Magus; and his feet, when he arrives there, will thrust down the man of
Alagna still lower.[54]"

In the form, then, of a white rose the blessed multitude of human souls
lay manifest before the eyes of the poet; and now he observed, that the
winged portion of the blest, the angels, who fly up with their wings
nearer to Him that fills them with love, came to and fro upon the rose
like bees; now descending into its bosom, now streaming back to the
source of their affection. Their faces were all fire, their wings
golden, their garments whiter than snow. Whenever they descended on
the flower, they went from fold to fold, fanning their loins, and
communicating the peace and ardour which they gathered as they gave.
Dante beheld all,--every flight and action of the whole winged
multitude,--without let or shadow; for he stood in the region of light
itself, and light has no obstacle where it is deservedly vouchsafed.

"Oh," cries the poet, "if the barbarians that came from the north stood
dumb with amazement to behold the magnificence of Rome, thinking they
saw unearthly greatness in the Lateran, what must I have thought, who
had thus come from human to divine, from time to eternity, from the
people of Florence to beings just and sane?"

Dante stood, without a wish either to speak or to hear. He felt like a
pilgrim who has arrived within the place of his devotion, and who looks
round about him, hoping some day to relate what he sees. He gazed
upwards and downwards, and on every side round about, and saw movements
graceful with every truth of innocence, and faces full of loving
persuasion, rich in their own smiles and in the light of the smiles of
others.

He turned to Beatrice, but she was gone;--gone, as a messenger from
herself told him, to resume her seat in the blessed rose, which the
messenger accordingly pointed out. She sat in the third circle from the
top, as far from Dante as the bottom of the sea is from the region of
thunder; and yet he saw her as plainly as if she had been close at hand.
He addressed words to her of thanks for all she had done for him, and
a hope for her assistance after death; and she looked down at him and
smiled.

The messenger was St. Bernard. He bade the poet lift his eyes higher;
and Dante beheld the Virgin Mary sitting above the rose, in the centre
of an intense redness of light, like another dawn. Thousands of angels
were hanging buoya