GIORDANO BRUNO OF NOLA.

O you who kindle eternal flames in the mortal heart,
And have commanded my breast to rise with such great
Light and to glow with such great fire;
By which I—with the shadows driven back on every side,
And having mastered the sluggish weight of the delaying mass—
Shall traverse the immense world with senses lifted high.
20 All-seeing light, light that makes all things seen,
Raising up minds, snatching the senses above the heavens:
You who, shaking off my lethargy, have granted me to be awake,
Whom sight generates, who rises to the sight, and by that
original: "visus." Bruno plays with the idea that the "Light" is both the source of vision and the object being seen.
Preserved, you live for us, and you preserve all
Living things, finishing the hardest tasks with a most gentle strike;
You reveal whatever Earth, Water, Upper Air, and the Abyss
original: "Tellus, Unda, Aethera, Abyssus"—the traditional four elements or regions of the cosmos.
Comprise. Therefore the common crowd might call you blind,
Lacking light and eyes, and the mindless might call you "without a mind."
There shall be no place, no lot, no time, and no age
30 To move me from my station, which might prove me wrong, O you who
Suggested to these eyes a "whole" enclosed by no margin,
A central tenet of Bruno’s philosophy: the universe has no outer boundary or "edge."
And showed that the shining stars are true worlds.
I have known that the face of the Earth is nonetheless
Shining—a truly holy and venerable star.
Bruno was one of the first to argue that the Earth, seen from space, would shine like any other planet or star.
O how often has your wing-feather (O Divine one) been placed beneath me
As I was falling, and how often when I was pressed by the weight of cares.
Lest I should throw myself headlong, your (greatest) virtue
Held me back. Truly, you were present in the likeness of the starry
Sky, clothed in light, driving away the clouds of insane fury,
40 Dispersing the turbulent phantasms with the spread
Feathers of your wings, which with a thousand colors
Make the world tranquil. Whence the Earth, adorned with a green
Back, meets the sun with radiant waves,