All Being within this order, by the laws (from The Paradiso, Canto I)

by Dante Alighieri

English version by John Ciardi
Original Language Italian

All Being within this order, by the laws
     of its own nature is impelled to find
     its proper station round its Primal Cause.

Thus every nature moves across the tide
     of the great sea of being to its own port,
     each with its given instinct as its guide.

This instinct draws the fire about the Moon.
     It is the mover in the mortal heart.
     It draws the earth together and makes it one.

Not only the brute creatures, but all those
     possessed of intellect and love, this instinct
     drives to their mark as a bow shoots forth its arrows.

The Providence that makes all things hunger here
     satisfies forever with its light
     the heaven within which whirls the fastest sphere.

-- from The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, by Dante Alighieri / Translated by John Ciardi

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Recommended Books: Dante Alighieri

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry The Divine Comedy: The Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso Dark Way to Paradise: Dante's Inferno in Light of the Spiritual Path



All Being within