File talk:Paradiso Canto 31.jpg
I believe this is actually from Canto 28, lines 16-39:
16 A point beheld I, that was raying out
17 Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles
18 Must close perforce before such great acuteness.
19 And whatsoever star seems smallest here
20 Would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it.
21 As one star with another star is placed.
22 Perhaps at such a distance as appears
23 A halo cincturing the light that paints it,
24 When densest is the vapour that sustains it,
25 Thus distant round the point a circle of fire
26 So swiftly whirled, that it would have surpassed
27 Whatever motion soonest girds the world;
28 And this was by another circumcinct,
29 That by a third, the third then by a fourth,
30 By a fifth the fourth, and then by a sixth the fifth;
31 The seventh followed thereupon in width
32 So ample now, that Juno's messenger
33 Entire would be too narrow to contain it.
34 Even so the eighth and ninth; and every one
35 More slowly moved, according as it was
36 In number distant farther from the first.
37 And that one had its flame most crystalline
38 From which less distant was the stainless spark,
39 I think because more with its truth imbued. (Longfellow)
