A miracle in action is display'd
By reason of a soul whose splendors fare
Even hither: and since Heaven requireth
Nought saving her, for her it prayeth Thee,
Thy Saints crying aloud continually.'
and again:
Madonna è desiata in l'alto cielo.
My lady is desired in the high Heaven.
Donne, one thinks, must have read the Vita Nuova as well as the Divina Commedia. It is possible that in the eulogy of Elizabeth Drury he is following its transcendental manner without fully appreciating the transfiguration through which Beatrice passed in Dante's mind.
ll. 511-18. Here in a place, &c. These lines show that The Second Anniversary was written while Donne was in France with Sir Robert and Lady Drury. Compare A Letter to the Lady Carey, &c., p. [221]: