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Home  »  The Sonnets of Europe  »  Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888.

Celestial Love

Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Translated by John Addington Symonds

NO mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes

When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;

But far within, where all is holy ground,

My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:

For she was born with God in Paradise;

Nor all the shows of beauty shed around

This fair false world her wings to earth have bound:

Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies.

Nay, things that suffer death, quench not the fire

Of deathless spirits; nor eternity

Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare.

Not love but lawless impulse is desire:

That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair

Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.