Love's Flame Doth Feed On Age.

Se da' prim' anni.


If some mild heat of love in youth confessed
        Burns a fresh heart with swift consuming fire,
        What will the force be of a flame more dire
        Shut up within an old man's cindery breast?
If the mere lapse of lengthening years hath pressed
        So sorely that life, strength, and vigour tire,
        How shall he fare who must ere long expire,
        When to old age is added love's unrest?
Weak as myself, he will be whirled away
        Like dust by winds kind in their cruelty,
        Robbing the loathly worm of its last prey.
A little flame consumed and fed on me
        In my green age: now that the wood is dry,
        What hope against this fire more fierce have I?

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.

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English

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Love Feeds The Flame Of Age.

Quand' il servo il signior.


When masters bind a slave with cruel chain,
        And keep him hope-forlorn in bondage pent,
        Use tames his temper to imprisonment,
        And hardly would he fain be free again.
Use curbs the snake and tiger, and doth train
        Fierce woodland lions to bear chastisement;
        And the young artist, all with toil forspent,
        By constant use a giant's strength doth gain
But with the force of flame it is not so:
        For while fire sucks the sap of the green wood,
        It warms a frore old man and makes him grow;
With such fine heat of youth and lustihood
        Filling his heart and teaching it to glow,
        That love enfolds him with beatitude.
                                If then in ...

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love In Youth And Age. First Reading.

Tornami al tempo.


Bring back the time when blind desire ran free,
        With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight;
        Give back the buried face, once angel-bright,
        That hides in earth all comely things from me;
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
        So toilsome-slow to one whose hairs are white;
        Those tears and flames that in one breast unite;
        If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!
Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive
        Only on bitter honey-dews of tears.
        Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.
My soul that toward the other shore doth strive,
        Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears;
        And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love In Youth And Age. Second Reading.

Tornami al tempo.


Bring back the time when glad desire ran free
        With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight,
        The tears and flames that in one breast unite,
        If thou art fain once more to conquer me!
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
        So toilsome-slow to him whose hairs are white!
        Give back the buried face once angel-bright,
        That taxed all Nature's art and industry.
O Love! an old man finds it hard to chase
        Thy flying pinions! Thou hast left thy nest;
        Nor is my heart as light as heretofore.
Put thy gold arrows to the string once more:
        Then if Death hear my prayer and grant me grace,
        My grief I shall forget, again made blest.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Evening.

Se 'l troppo indugio.


What though long waiting wins more happiness
        Than petulant desire is wont to gain,
        My luck in latest age hath brought me pain,
        Thinking how brief must be an old man's bliss.
Heaven, if it heed our lives, can hardly bless
        This fire of love when frosts are wont to reign:
        For so I love thee, lady, and my strain
        Of tears through age exceeds in tenderness.
Yet peradventure though my day is done,--
        Though nearly past the setting mid thick cloud
        And frozen exhalations sinks my sun,--
If love to only mid-day be allowed,
        And I an old man in my evening burn,
        You, lady, still my night to noon may turn.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Love's Furnace.

Sì amico al freddo sasso.


So friendly is the fire to flinty stone,
        That, struck therefrom and kindled to a blaze,
        It burns the stone, and from the ash doth raise
        What lives thenceforward binding stones in one:
Kiln-hardened this resists both frost and sun,
        Acquiring higher worth for endless days--
        As the purged soul from hell returns with praise,
        Amid the heavenly host to take her throne.
E'en so the fire struck from my soul, that lay
        Close-hidden in my heart, may temper me,
        Till burned and slaked to better life I rise.
If, made mere smoke and dust, I live to-day,
        Fire-hardened I shall live eternally;
        Such gold, not iron, my spirit strikes and tries.

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