The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To The Swiss.

Se voi più innalza.


Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elate
        To heaven exalt you than that gift divine,
        Freedom; why do your children still combine
        To keep the despots in their stolen state?
Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wide
        You fling your blood, taking no thought what cause,
        Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws;
        So is your valour spurned and vilified.
All things belong to free men; but the slave
        Clothes and feeds poorly. Even so from you
        Broad lands and Malta's knighthood men withhold.
Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do!
        Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gave
        So recklessly, and they so dear have sold!

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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The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - Nebuchadnezzar's Image.

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Celestial Love.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Simple Poetry

English

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The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To Genoa.

Le Ninfe d'Arno.


The nymphs of Arno; Adria's goddess-queen;
        Greece, where the Latin banner floated free;
        The lands that border on the Syrian sea;
        The Euxine, and fair Naples; these have been
Thine, by the right of conquest; these should be
        Still thine by empire: Asia's broad demesne,
        Afric, America--realms never seen
        But by thy venture--all belong to thee.
But thou, thyself not knowing, leavest all
        For a poor price to strangers; since thy head
        Is weak, albeit thy limbs are stout and good.
Genoa, mistress of the world, recall
        Thy soul magnanimous! Nay, be not led
        Slave to base gold, thou and thy tameless brood!

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - To The Poets.

In superbia il valor.


Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
        To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
        To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
        Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
        Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
        Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
        Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
        Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!
        Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
        Which hath not smothered history in lies,
        And arms the soul against each sinful thing.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Sage On Earth.

Sciolto e legato.


Bound and yet free, companioned and alone,
        Loud mid my silence, I confound my foes:
        Men think me fool in this vile world of woes;
        God's wisdom greets me sage from heaven's high throne.
With wings on earth oppressed aloft I bound;
        My gleeful soul sad bonds of flesh enclose:
        And though sometimes too great the burden grows,
        These pinions bear me upward from the ground.
A doubtful combat proves the warrior's might:
        Short is all time matched with eternity:
        Nought than a pleasing burden is more light.
My brows I bind with my love's effigy,
        Sure that my joyous flight will soon be sped
        Where without speech my thoughts shall all be read.

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

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Proem.

Io che nacqui dal Senno.


Born of God's Wisdom and Philosophy,
        Keen lover of true beauty and true good,
        I call the vain self-traitorous multitude
        Back to my mother's milk; for it is she,
Faithful to God her spouse, who nourished me,
        Making me quick and active to intrude
        Within the inmost veil, where I have viewed
        And handled all things in eternity.
If the whole world's our home where we may run,
        Up, friends, forsake those secondary schools
        Which give grains, units, inches for the whole!
If facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul,
        And pain, and ignorance that hardens fools,
        Here in the fire I've stolen from the Sun!

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

The Sonnets Of Tommaso Campanella - The Year 1603.

Già sto mirando.


The first heaven-wandering lights I see ascend
        Upon the seventh and ninth centenary,
        When in the Archer's realm three years shall be
        Added, this aeon and our age to end.
Thou too, Mercurius, like a scribe dost lend
        Thine aid to promulgate that dread decree,
        Stored in the archives of eternity,
        And signed and sealed by powers no prayers can bend.
O'er Europe's full meridian on thy morn
        In the tenth house thy court I see thee hold:
        The Sun with thee consents in Capricorn.
God grant that I may keep this mortal breath
        Until I too that glorious day behold
        Which shall at last confound the sons of death!

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni