Love's Expostulation.

S' un casto amor.


If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill,
        If fortune bind both lovers in one bond,
        If either at the other's grief despond,
        If both be governed by one life, one will;
If in two bodies one soul triumph still,
        Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond,
        If Love with one blow and one golden wand
        Have power both smitten breasts to pierce and thrill;
If each the other love, himself forgoing,
        With such delight, such savour, and so well,
        That both to one sole end their wills combine;
If thousands of these thoughts, all thought outgoing,
        Fail the least part of their firm love to tell:
        Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine?

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

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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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 Entreaty.

Tu sa' ch' i' so, Signor mie.


Thou knowest, love, I know that thou dost know
        That I am here more near to thee to be,
        And knowest that I know thou knowest me:
        What means it then that we are sundered so?
If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow,
        If it is real, this sweet expectancy,
        Break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee;
        For pain in prison pent hath double woe.
Because in thee I love, O my loved lord,
        What thou best lovest, be not therefore stern:
        Souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry!
I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored;
        Yet living man that beauty scarce can learn,
        And he who fain would find it, first must die.

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

Love's Justification. Second Reading.

Ben può talor col casto.


It must be right sometimes to entertain
        Chaste love with hope not over-credulous;
        Since if all human loves were impious,
        Unto what end did God the world ordain?
If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign,
        'Tis for the sake of beauty glorious
        Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us,
        And drives all evil thought from its domain.
That is not love whose tyranny we own
        In loveliness that every moment dies;
        Which, like the face it worships, fades away:
True love is that which the pure heart hath known,
        Which alters not with time or death's decay,
        Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Argument With Reason.

La ragion meco si lamenta.


Reason laments and grieves full sore with me,
        The while I hope by loving to be blest;
        With precepts sound and true philosophy
        My shame she quickens thus within my breast:
'What else but death will that sun deal to thee--
        Nor like the phoenix in her flaming nest?'
        Yet nought avails this wise morality;
        No hand can save a suicide confessed.
I know my doom; the truth I apprehend:
        But on the other side my traitorous heart
        Slays me whene'er to wisdom's words I bend.
Between two deaths my lady stands apart:
        This death I dread; that none can comprehend.
        In this suspense body and soul must part.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Paradoxes.

Sento d' un foco.


Far off with fire I feel a cold face lit,
        That makes me burn, the while itself doth freeze:
        Two fragile arms enchain me, which with ease,
        Unmoved themselves, can move weights infinite.
A soul none knows but I, most exquisite,
        That, deathless, deals me death, my spirit sees:
        I meet with one who, free, my heart doth seize:
        And who alone can cheer, hath tortured it.
How can it be that from one face like thine
        My own should feel effects so contrary,
        Since ill comes not from things devoid of ill?
That loveliness perchance doth make me pine,
        Even as the sun, whose fiery beams we see,
        Inflames the world, while he is temperate still.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni