The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Conscience.

Seco ogni coif a è doglia.


All crime is its own torment, bearing woe
        To mind or body or decrease of fame;
        If not at once, still step by step our name
        Or blood or friends or fortune it brings low.
But if our will do not resent the blow,
        We have not sinned. That penance hath no blame
        Which Magdalen found sweet: purging our shame,
        Self-punishment is virtue, all men know.
The consciousness of goodness pure and whole
        Makes a man fully blest; but misery
        Springs from false conscience, blinded in its pride.
This Simon Peter meant when he replied
        To Simon Magus, that the prescient soul
        Hath her own proof of immortality.

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

At The Foot Of The Cross.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

The Doom Of Beauty.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

After The Death Of Vittoria Colonna. Love's Triumph Over Death.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

The Impeachment Of Night.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

English

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The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Love Of Self And God.

Questo amor singolar.


This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth:
        Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feign
        Sense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain,
        A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth.
Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe;
        Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stain
        With virtues eminent, by spur and rein
        Drives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath.
But he who loves our common Father, hath
        All men for brothers, and with God doth joy
        In whatsoever worketh for their bliss.
Good Francis called the birds upon his path
        Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.--
        Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Soul's Apology.

Ben sei mila anni.


Six thousand years or more on earth I've been:
        Witness those histories of nations dead,
        Which for our age I have illustrated
        In philosophic volumes, scene by scene.
And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun serene
        Eclipsed, wilt argue that I had no head
        To live by.--Why not try the sun instead,
        If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen?
If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combined
        With tyrant wolves, brute beasts we should become.
        The sage, once stoned for sin, you canonise.
When rennet melts, much milk makes haste to bind.
        The more you blow the flames, the more they rise,
        Bloom into stars, and find in heaven their home.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Soul.

Dentro un pugno di cervel.


A handful of brain holds me: I consume
        So much that all the books the world contains,
        Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:--
        What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom.
With one world Aristarchus fed my greed;
        This finished, others Metrodorus gave;
        Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave:
        The more I know, the more to learn I need.
Thus I'm an image of that Sire in whom
        All beings are, like fishes in the sea;
        That one true object of the loving mind.
Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home;
        The Church may guide; but only blest is he
        Who loses self in God, God's self to find.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To Death.

Morte, stipendio della colpa.


O Death, the wage of our first father's blame,
        Daughter of envy and nonentity,
        Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry,
        Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame!
Thy last great conquest dost thou dare proclaim,
        Crying that all things are subdued to thee,
        Against the Almighty raised almightily?--
        The proofs that prop thy pride of state are lame.
Not to serve thee, but to make thee serve Him,
        He stoops to Hell. The choice of arms was thine;
        Yet art thou scoffed at by the crucified!
He lives--thy loss. He dies--from every limb,
        Mangled by thee, lightnings of godhead shine,
        From which thy darkness hath not where to hide.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - On The Sepulchre Of Christ. No. I.

O tu ch' ami la parte.


O you who love the part more than the whole,
        And love yourself more than all human kind,
        Who persecute good men with prudence blind
        Because they combat your malign control,
See Scribes and Pharisees, each impious school,
        Each sect profane, o'erthrown by his great mind,
        Whose best our good to Deity refined,
        The while they thought Death triumphed o'er his soul.
Deem you that only you have thought and sense,
        While heaven and all its wonders, sun and earth,
        Scorned in your dullness, lack intelligence?
Fool! what produced you? These things gave you birth:
        So have they mind and God. Repent; be wise!
        Man fights but ill with Him who rules the skies.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - An Exhortation To Mankind.

Abitator del mondo.


Ye dwellers on this world, to the first Mind
        Exalt your eyes; and ye shall see how low
        Vile Tyranny, wearing the glorious show
        Of nobleness and worth, keeps you confined.
Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwined
        With lies and snares, who once taught men to know
        The fear of God. Next to the Sophists go,
        Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind.
Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came:
        To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough:
        To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven's own flame.
But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies,
        Or boldly rush on death, is not enough;
        Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni