Love's Vain Expense.

Rendete a gli occhi miei.


Give back unto mine eyes, ye fount and rill,
        Those streams, not yours, that are so full and strong,
        That swell your springs, and roll your waves along
        With force unwonted in your native hill!

And thou, dense air, weighed with my sighs so chill,
        That hidest heaven's own light thick mists among,
        Give back those sighs to my sad heart, nor wrong
        My visual ray with thy dark face of ill!

Let earth give back the footprints that I wore,
        That the bare grass I spoiled may sprout again;
        And Echo, now grown deaf, my cries return!

Loved eyes, unto mine eyes those looks restore,
        And let me woo another not in vain,
        Since how to please thee I shall never learn!

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

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 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 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 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 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

To Tommaso De' Cavalieri. Love's Lordship.

A che più debb' io.


Why should I seek to ease intense desire
        With still more tears and windy words of grief,
        When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief
        To souls whom love hath robed around with fire?
Why need my aching heart to death aspire,
        When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief
        Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief,
        Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!
Therefore because I cannot shun the blow
        I rather seek, say who must rule my breast,
        Gliding between her gladness and her woe?
If only chains and bands can make me blest,
        No marvel if alone and bare I go
        An arméd Knight's captive and slave confessed.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni