Celestial Love.

Non vider gli occhi miei.


I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
        When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
        But far within, where all is holy ground,
        My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
        Else should we still to transient loves be bound;
        But, finding these so false, we pass beyond
        Unto the Love of Loves that never dies.
Nay, things that die, cannot assuage the thirst
        Of souls undying; nor Eternity
        Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth.
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst:
        This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high
        Our friends on earth--higher in heaven through death.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born on March 6, 1475, he is widely considered one of the greatest artists of all time. His poetry, although lesser-known compared to his other artistic achievements, displays his deep contemplation of art, love, and spirituality. Michelangelo passed away on February 18, 1564.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love Lifts To God.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

Love And Death.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

Love's Loadstone. First Reading.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Book Of Nature.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

English

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Celestial And Earthly Love.

Non è sempre di colpa.


Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:
        If it be love of loveliness divine,
        It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
        For rays of God's own grace to enter in.
Love fits the soul with wings, and bids her win
        Her flight aloft nor e'er to earth decline;
        'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine
        Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.
The love of that whereof I speak, ascends:
        Woman is different far; the love of her
        But ill befits a heart all manly wise.
The one love soars, the other downward tends;
        The soul lights this, while that the senses stir,
        And still his arrow at base quarry flies.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Heavenly Birth Of Love And Beauty.

La vita del mie amor.


This heart of flesh feeds not with life my love:
        The love wherewith I love thee hath no heart;
        Nor harbours it in any mortal part,
        Where erring thought or ill desire may move.
When first Love sent our souls from God above,
        He fashioned me to see thee as thou art--
        Pure light; and thus I find God's counterpart
        In thy fair face, and feel the sting thereof.
As heat from fire, from loveliness divine
        The mind that worships what recalls the sun
        From whence she sprang, can be divided never:
And since thine eyes all Paradise enshrine,
        Burning unto those orbs of light I run,
        There where I loved thee first to dwell for ever.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love And Death.

Ognor che l' idol mio.


Whene'er the idol of these eyes appears
        Unto my musing heart so weak and strong,
        Death comes between her and my soul ere long
        Chasing her thence with troops of gathering fears.
Nathless this violence my spirit cheers
        With better hope than if she had no wrong;
        While Love invincible arrays the throng
        Of dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers:
But once, he argues, can a mortal die;
        But once be born: and he who dies afire,
        What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me?
That burning love whereby the soul flies free,
        Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspire
        Like gold refined in flame to God on high.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Excuse.

Dal dolcie pianto.


From happy tears to woeful smiles, from peace
        Eternal to a brief and hollow truce,
        How have I fallen!--when 'tis truth we lose,
        Sense triumphs o'er all adverse impulses.
I know not if my heart bred this disease,
        That still more pleasing grows with growing use;
        Or else thy face, thine eyes, which stole the hues
        And fires of Paradise--less fair than these.
Thy beauty is no mortal thing; 'twas sent
        From heaven on high to make our earth divine:
        Wherefore, though wasting, burning, I'm content;
For in thy sight what could I do but pine?
        If God himself thus rules my destiny,
        Who, when I die, can lay the blame on thee?

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Dilemma.

I' mi credetti.


I deemed upon that day when first I knew
        So many peerless beauties blent in one,
        That, like an eagle gazing on the sun,
        Mine eyes might fix on the least part of you.
That dream hath vanished, and my hope is flown;
        For he who fain a seraph would pursue
        Wingless, hath cast words to the winds, and dew
        On stones, and gauged God's reason with his own.
If then my heart cannot endure the blaze
        Of beauties infinite that blind these eyes,
        Nor yet can bear to be from you divided,
What fate is mine? Who guides or guards my ways,
        Seeing my soul, so lost and ill-betided,
        Burns in your presence, in your absence dies?

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

In Love's Own Time.

S' i' avessi creduto.


Had I but earlier known that from the eyes
        Of that bright soul that fires me like the sun,
        I might have drawn new strength my race to run,
        Burning as burns the phoenix ere it dies;
Even as the stag or lynx or leopard flies
        To seek his pleasure and his pain to shun,
        Each word, each smile of her would I have won,
        Flying where now sad age all flight denies.
Yet why complain? For even now I find
        In that glad angel's face, so full of rest,
        Health and content, heart's ease and peace of mind
Perchance I might have been less simply blest,
        Finding her sooner: if 'tis age alone
        That lets me soar with her to seek God's throne.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni