Before Me Things Created Were None, Save

Art, As Far As It Is Able, Follows Nature, As A Pupil Imitates His Master; Thus Your Art Must Be, As It Were, God's Grandchild.

The Three Divine Are In This Hierarchy, First The Dominions, And The Virtues Next; And The Third Order Is That Of The Powers. The In The Dances Twain Penultimate The Principalities And Archangels Wheel; The Last Is Wholly Of Angelic Sports. These Orders Upward All Of Them Are Gazing, And Downward So Prevail, That Unto God They All Attracted Are And All Attract.

In That Part Of The Book Of My Memory Before The Which Is Little That Can Be Read, There Is A Rubric, Saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under Such Rubric I Find Written Many Things; And Among Them The Words Which I Purpose To Copy Into This Little Book; If Not All Of Them, At The Least Their Substance.

To Get Back Up To The Shining World From There My Guide And I Went Into That Hidden Tunnel, And Following Its Path, We Took No Care To Rest, But Climbed: He First, Then I-so Far, Through A Round Aperture I Saw Appear Some Of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Where We Came Forth, And Once More Saw The Stars.

Those Ancients Who In Poetry Presented The Golden Age, Who Sang Its Happy State, Perhaps, In Their Parnassus, Dreamt This Place. Here, Mankind's Root Was Innocent; And Here Were Every Fruit And Never-ending Spring; These Streams--the Nectar Of Which Poets Sing.