Beatrice at the Gates of Heaven

Dante walked where mortal shadows dwell,

Through bitter wood and downward road to Hell
He learned what every wounded soul must know:
That sin descends where wounded passions go.

Yet far above the smoke, the flame, the night,
A woman waited clothed in borrowed light.
Not light her own—for every saint must be
A mirror of the Holy Trinity.

Beatrice came, not as his final end,
But grace made beautiful, a heaven-sent friend;
Her eyes did not command his heart to stay—
They lifted it beyond her, up the Way.

“Look higher, Dante. Love me rightly now:
Not as a god before whom you should bow.
The beauty that you sought within my face
Was but a window opened onto Grace.”

And upward through the spheres his spirit passed,
From lesser loves unto the First and Last;
Until the stars themselves appeared as dust
Before the One in whom all creatures trust.

There Mary stood, the Queen whom Heaven crowned,
Where angels sang and saints were gathered round;
And Beatrice, among that blessed choir,
Returned his gaze, then pointed higher.

For every faithful love, when purified,
Must lead beyond itself to Christ who died;
And every beauty, rightly understood,
Is only beautiful because God is Good.

So Dante learned what Beatrice had known:
No human heart was fashioned for its own.
The lover, and the beloved, and love’s desire
Find their completion in the Triune Fire.

And when at last he saw that endless Light,
Where mercy, truth, and justice all unite,
He knew the face that drew him from despair
Had led him only to the Face most fair.

Not Beatrice his heaven. Not stars above.
But God—the source, the end, the Life of love.
And all creation, turning at His call,
Moved by the Love that moves the sun and all.