escape from a bankrupt state

The soul, which is created quick to love,
responds to everything that pleases, just
as soon as beauty wakens it to act.

Your apprehension draws an image from
a real object and expands upon
that object until soul has turned toward it;

and if, so turned, the soul tends steadfastly,
then that propensity is love—it’s nature
that joins the soul in you, anew, through beauty.

Dante, Divina Comedia, Purgatorio, Canto 18, verses 19 – 27