Paradiso: Canto XIV

For I have seen all winter long the thorn
  First show itself intractable and fierce,
  And after bear the rose upon its top;

And I have seen a ship direct and swift
  Run o'er the sea throughout its course entire,
  To perish at the harbour's mouth at last.

Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think,
  Seeing one steal, another offering make,
  To see them in the arbitrament divine;

For one may rise, and fall the other may."



Paradiso: Canto XIV


From centre unto rim, from rim to centre,
  In a round vase the water moves itself,
  As from without 'tis struck or from within.

Into my mind upon a sudden dropped
  What I am saying, at the moment when
  Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,

Because of the resemblance that was born
  Of his discourse and that of Beatrice,
  Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:

"This man has need (and does not tell you so,
  Nor with the voice, nor even in his thought)
  Of going to the root of one truth more.

Declare unto him if the light wherewith
  Blossoms your substance shall remain with you
  Eternally the same that it is now;

And if it do remain, say in what manner,
  After ye are again made visible,
  It can be that it injure not your sight."