PARADISE. Alasdair Gray
to source like pilgrims going home,
twin beams of light now linked her sight and sun. 31
I copied her. Eden was made for ease
of humankind. There it was possible
for me to see what here would make me blind. 34
Gazing into the solar blaze I saw,
like molten silver splashed from crucible,
such fountains of tremendous light I thought 37
that He Who Can had made an extra sun.
I saw too Beatrice now looked upon
the high, eternal, starry, singing wheels 40
so lowering my eyes to rest on hers
I heard them too. Eating a magic herb
changed Glaucus to an ancient Greek sea-god. 43
The love-light in the face of Beatrice
transhumaned me in ways I cannot say.
Of new sensations knowledge cannot speak 46
unless it learns new words. Did God lift up
my eager mind to his eternal sphere?
49 No rain or river filled so vast a lake
as this whole sky now kindled into flame.
The brilliance of its harmony and light
52 provoked an appetite to know the cause,
so she who understood me perfectly
smiling replied before I questioned her,
55 “Dullard, do you not see you’ve left the earth?
Lightning never flashed faster from a cloud
than we ascend to your right place and mine.”
58 Her smile and words erased perplexities
before I found one more. “But why,” said I,
“does solid me rise above lighter things?”
61 Like mother soothing sickly child she said,
“Order is God’s first law. All that He made
have places in eternal excellence, for which
64 in minerals, plants, animals they strive
instinctively, in people willingly.
When ill will leads astray our souls can’t rest
67 until we reach our given place and are
at last in harmony with all that’s best.
We are now soaring to our origin
70 as naturally as a waterfall
pours down a cliff. Those who forget their place
by choosing base delight, are very like
73 materials no artist can use well,
discarded in the midden heaps of Hell.
Climbing them there has purified you, so
guilt cannot weight you. That is why you rise. 76
Innocent souls who stay below defy
nature and reason, like a static flame.”
Pausing, she turned her eyes toward the sky. 79
2: Moon Sphere
1 Some folk in little boats follow my ship
because they like the story in my song.
Let them turn back toward the shore they know
4 unless their craft is strong. I now go far
over a sea no poet crossed before.
Minerva fills my sails. Apollo steers.
7 The Muses indicate each guiding star.
If you are of the few like me who seek
the bread that feeds but never satisfies,
10 you too may launch your vessel on this sea
using my wake as guide. The Argonauts,
those heroes voyaging for the Golden Fleece,
13 when they saw armed men springing from the soil
after their captain ploughed down dragon teeth
were not as much amazed as you will be.
16 Our inborn thirst for God’s sufficiency
kept Beatrice intent on upper skies,
me intent on her eyes, so up we went
19 as swiftly as we looked, until halted
by a wondrous sight. It stopped us short
as a struck target ends an arrow flight.
“Now praise God for His generosity! 22
This star is nearest earth,” said happily
that fairest one who understood my mind.
I saw what lower down could not exist. 25
Luminous mist enclosed us now inside
a diamond-hard and perfect shining pearl,
yet we could move in it as easily 28
as light rays pass through water in a glass
without a change of character in each.
For one or more bodies to occupy 31
an equally dense body easily
defies earth’s common sense. In Paradise
it was quite clear to my intelligence. 34
“Lady,” said I, “my gratitude to He
who saves us from death’s grip will never cease,
but why, when viewed from where most people live, 37
has this pure moon a spotted face? Some say
they can make out Cain and his thornbush there.”
Amused she said, “Wits stray when seeking laws 40
for what they cannot touch, so tell me now
what you think the cause.” “Varied density?”
I suggested. “Looking through dirty air?” 43
“No,” said she. “God has made all the Heavens
equally good. Air here is free from dirt,
and though bodies of light within these skies 46
differ in sizes, colours, faculties,
their densities do not. On summer days
49 most things appear equally clear at noon.
At night when you see bodies in one sphere
what you mistake for spots are smaller lights
52 contrasted with more bright, as in the moon.”
3: In the Moon
She who, sunlike, first warmed my breast with love 1
deserved both gratitude for that reply
and for correcting me. Raising my eyes,
surprise expelled my thanks. I thought she stood 4
beside a dusty glass that mirrored folk
so faintly that a pearl on a pale brow
was not more dim.