2 It was now the hour that turns back desire in those that sail the sea, and softens their hearts, 3 the day when they have said to their sweet friends farewell, and which pierces the new pilgrim with love, if he hear from afar a bell 6 that seems to deplore the dying day – when I began to render hearing vain, and to look at one of the souls, 9 who, uprisen, besought attention with its hand. It joined and raised both its palms, fixing its eyes toward the east, 12 as if it said to God, “For aught else I care not.” Te lucis ante so devoutly issued from his mouth and with such sweet notes 15 that it made me issue forth from my own mind. And then the others sweetly and devoutly accompanied it through all the hymn to the end, 18 having their eyes on the supernal wheels. Here, reader, sharpen weil thine eyes to the truth, for surely the veil is now so thin 21 indeed that passing through within is easy. I saw that army of the gentle-born silently thereafter gazing upward, 24 as if in expectation, pallid and humble; and I saw, issuing from on high and descending, two angels with two flaming swords 27 truncated and deprived of their points.
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