The banner of real certitude floats where they rise.
They’ve thought abandoned; light and life they’ve truly found;
Their breasts and hearts are filled with love’s inspiring sound.70
Death, that dread thing of which all mankind stand in fear,
Is laughed and mocked at by the saints, when it draws near.
No man has power to dominate their tranquil minds.
The shell may injured be; the pearl harm never finds.
The rhetor’s art, the jurist’s skill, they set at naught;
But poverty, abasement, to themselves they’ve taught.
The scenes of all eight paradises[375] are consumed