Prayer to the Virgin

Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

"The Prayer to the Virgin" is the beginning of the Canto XXXIII of Dante`s "Divine Comedy". Here St. Bernard prays to the Virgin Mary that Dante may have grace given him to contemplate the brightness of the Divine Majesty. This is granted.

"Virgin mother, daughter of your Son,
Humbler and higher than all other creatures,
Fixed aim and goal of the eternal plan,

"You are the one who lifted human nature
 To such nobility that its own Maker
Did not disdain to be made of its making.

"Within your womb was lit once more the flame
Of that love through whose warmth this flower opened
To its full bloom in everlasting peace.

 "To us up here you are the torch of noon
Blazing with love, and for the mortals down there
You are the living fountainhead of hope.

"Lady, you are so highly placed and helpful,
Whoever seeks grace and does not call on you
 Wants his desires to fly up without wings.

"Your loving heart not only offers aid
To those who ask for it, but oftentimes
Free-handedly anticipates the asking.

"In you is mercy, in you largeheartedness,
 In you compassion, and in you is found
Whatever good exists in any creature.

"Now this man who from down the deepest pit
Of the whole universe up to this point
Has seen the lives of spirits, one by one,

 "Begs by your grace that you will give him strength
To enable him to rise on with his eyes
Still higher to the summit of salvation.

"And I, who never burned for my own vision
More than I burn for his, pour out to you
 All of my prayers, and pray they be sufficient

"For you to scatter from him by your prayers
Every last cloud of his mortality
That he may see revealed the highest Pleasure.

"I pray you also, Queen, for you can do
 Whatever you will, that after he has seen
This vision, you keep his affections wholesome.

"Watch and restrain his human impulses:
See Beatrice with so many blessed spirits
Clasping their hands to join me in this prayer."

 The eyes God loves and reverences the most,
Fastened upon this praying saint, displayed
How deeply she is pleased by devout prayer.

Then her eyes turned to the eternal Light
Into whose depth we may believe the eyes
Of no other creature penetrates more clearly.

And I, now drawing closer to the end
Of every longing, lifted to that end,
Just as I should, the flame of all my longing.

Bernard gave me a signal and a smile
 To look straight up, but by myself already
I was intent as he would have me be,

Because my sight, becoming crystal clear,
Was piercing deeper and deeper through the rays
Of that deep Light which in itself is true.

From that point on, my power to see was stronger
Than speech that fails before such sights can show,
As memory falls short of the beyond.

As someone who while dreaming sees a vision
And, after he has dreamed, the feeling stays
Impressed, but all the rest slips from his mind,

I am like that, for almost all my seeing
Now falls away, but sweetness sprung from it
Still drips down, drop by drop, into my heart.

So is the snow unsealed beneath the sunlight;
So were the sayings of the Sibyl upon
The light leaves left to drift off in the wind.

O highest Light, lifted up so far
Above all mortal thinking, lend my mind,
Once more, a little of what you were like,

And grant my tongue such powerful expression
That it may leave behind a single spark
Of glory for a people still to come.

For by returning some spark to my mind
And sounding out a little in these lines,
Your triumph shall be thought of more profoundly.

I think I would have been lost in a daze
With the dazzling I endured from that live beam
If my eyes once had turned away from it.

I remember I grew bolder for this reason
In bearing up with it, until I merged
My gazing with the infinite Goodness.

O grace abounding, by which I have dared
To fix my eyes through the eternal Light
So deeply that my sight was spent in it!

Within its depths I saw gathered together,
Bound by love into a single volume,
Leaves that lie scattered through the universe.

Substance and accidents and their relations
I saw as though they fused in such a way
That what I say is but a gleam of light.

The universal pattern of this knot
I believe I saw, because in telling this,
I feel my gladness growing ever larger.

One moment made more slip my memory than
Twenty-five centuries reft from the adventure
That awed Neptune with the shadow of the Argo.

So my mind, held in absolute suspense,
Was staring fixed, intent, and motionless,
And by its staring grew the more inflamed.

Within that Light a person is so changed
It is impossible to give consent
Ever to turn from it to other sights

Because the Good, the object of the will,
Is gathered all in it, and out of it
The thing that there is perfect has some flaw.

Now shall my telling of what I remember
Fall far below the babbling of a baby
Still bathing its tongue at the mother’s breast.

Not that there is more than a single semblance
Within that living Light on which I looked
And which is always what it was before,

But by the sight that gathered strength in me
As I gazed on, what was One in appearance
Was altering for me as I was changing.

In the profound and shining-clear Existence
Of the deep Light appeared to me three circles
Of one dimension and three different colors.

One seemed to be reflected by the other,
Rainbow by rainbow, while the third seemed fire
Breathed equally from one and from the other.

O how pale now is language and how paltry
For my conception! And for what I saw
My words are not enough to call them meager.

O everlasting Light, you dwell alone
In yourself, know yourself alone, and known
And knowing, love and smile upon yourself!

That middle circle which appeared in you
To be conceived as a reflected light,
After my eyes had studied it a while,

Within itself and in its coloring
Seemed to be painted with our human likeness
So that my eyes were wholly focused on it.

As the geometer who sets himself
To square the circle and who cannot find,
For all his thought, the principle he needs,

Just so was I on seeing this new vision
I wanted to see how our image fuses
Into the circle and finds its place in it,

Yet my wings were not meant for such a flight —
Except that then my mind was struck by lightning
Through which my longing was at last fulfilled.

Here powers failed my high imagination:
But by now my desire and will were turned,
Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,

By  the  Love  that  moves  the  sun  and  the  other  star.