To Luigi Del Riccio.

Nel dolce d' una.


It happens that the sweet unfathomed sea
        Of seeming courtesy sometimes doth hide
        Offence to life and honour. This descried,
        I hold less dear the health restored to me.
He who lends wings of hope, while secretly
        He spreads a traitorous snare by the wayside,
        Hath dulled the flame of love, and mortified
        Friendship where friendship burns most fervently.
Keep then, my dear Luigi, clear and pure
        That ancient love to which my life I owe,
        That neither wind nor storm its calm may mar.
For wrath and pain our gratitude obscure;
        And if the truest truth of love I know,
        One pang outweighs a thousand pleasures far.

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'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

To Luigi Del Riccio, After The Death Of Cecchino Bracci.

A pena prima.


Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes
        Which to your living eyes were life and light,
        When closed at last in death's injurious night
        He opened them on God in Paradise.
I know it and I weep, too late made wise:
        Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite
        Robbed my desire of that supreme delight,
        Which in your better memory never dies.
Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine
        To make unique Cecchino smile in stone
        For ever, now that earth hath made him dim,
If the beloved within the lover shine,
        Since art without him cannot work alone,
        You must I carve to tell the world of him.

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

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

Love And Art.

Sì come nella penna.


As pen and ink alike serve him who sings
        In high or low or intermediate style;
        As the same stone hath shapes both rich and vile
        To match the fancies that each master brings;
So, my loved lord, within thy bosom springs
        Pride mixed with meekness and kind thoughts that smile:
        Whence I draw nought, my sad self to beguile,
        But what my face shows--dark imaginings.
He who for seed sows sorrow, tears, and sighs,
        (The dews that fall from heaven, though pure and clear,
        From different germs take divers qualities)
Must needs reap grief and garner weeping eyes;
        And he who looks on beauty with sad cheer,
        Gains doubtful hope and certain miseries.

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