The Sonnets Of Michael Angelo Buonarroti And Tommaso Campanella Part 6

_LOVE THE LIGHT-GIVER._

_Veggio co' bei vostri occhi._

With your fair eyes a charming light I see, For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain; Stayed by your feet the burden I sustain Which my lame feet find all too strong for me; Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly; Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain; E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again, Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.

Your will includes and is the lord of mine; Life to my thoughts within your heart is given; My words begin to breathe upon your breath: Like to the moon am I, that cannot s.h.i.+ne Alone; for lo! our eyes see nought in heaven Save what the living sun illumineth.

x.x.xI.

To TOMMASO DE' CAVALIERI.

_LOVE'S LORDs.h.i.+P._

_A che piu 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 armed Knight's captive and slave confessed.

x.x.xII.

_LOVE'S EXPOSTULATION._

_S' un casto amor._

If love be chaste, if virtue conquer ill, If fortune bind both lovers in one bond, If either at the other's grief despond, If both be governed by one life, one will; If in two bodies one soul triumph still, Raising the twain from earth to heaven beyond, If Love with one blow and one golden wand Have power both smitten b.r.e.a.s.t.s to pierce and thrill; If each the other love, himself forgoing, With such delight, such savour, and so well, That both to one sole end their wills combine; If thousands of these thoughts, all thought outgoing, Fail the least part of their firm love to tell: Say, can mere angry spite this knot untwine?

x.x.xIII.

FIRST READING.

_A PRAYER TO NATURE._

AMOR REDIVIVUS.

_Perche tuo gran bellezze._

That thy great beauty on our earth may be Shrined in a lady softer and more kind, I call on nature to collect and bind All those delights the slow years steal from thee, And save them to restore the radiancy Of thy bright face in some fair form designed By heaven; and may Love ever bear in mind To mould her heart of grace and courtesy.

I call on nature too to keep my sighs, My scattered tears to take and recombine, And give to him who loves that fair again: More happy he perchance shall move those eyes To mercy by the griefs wherewith I pine, Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!

x.x.xIII.

SECOND READING.

_A PRAYER TO NATURE._

AMOR REDIVIVUS.

_Sol perche tue bellezze._

If only that thy beauties here may be Deathless through Time that rends the wreaths he twined, I trust that Nature will collect and bind All those delights the slow years steal from thee, And keep them for a birth more happily Born under better auspices, refined Into a heavenly form of n.o.bler mind, And dowered with all thine angel purity.

Ah me! and may heaven also keep my sighs, My scattered tears preserve and reunite, And give to him who loves that fair again!

More happy he perchance shall move those eyes To mercy by the griefs my manhood blight, Nor lose the kindness that from me is ta'en!

x.x.xIV.

_LOVE'S FURNACE._

_S amico al freddo sa.s.so._

So friendly is the fire to flinty stone, That, struck therefrom and kindled to a blaze, It burns the stone, and from the ash doth raise What lives thenceforward binding stones in one: Kiln-hardened this resists both frost and sun, Acquiring higher worth for endless days-- As the purged soul from h.e.l.l returns with praise, Amid the heavenly host to take her throne.

E'en so the fire struck from my soul, that lay Close-hidden in my heart, may temper me, Till burned and slaked to better life I rise.

If, made mere smoke and dust, I live to-day, Fire-hardened I shall live eternally; Such gold, not iron, my spirit strikes and tries.

x.x.xV.

_LOVE'S PARADOXES._

_Sento d' un foco._

Far off with fire I feel a cold face lit, That makes me burn, the while itself doth freeze: Two fragile arms enchain me, which with ease, Unmoved themselves, can move weights infinite.

A soul none knows but I, most exquisite, That, deathless, deals me death, my spirit sees: I meet with one who, free, my heart doth seize: And who alone can cheer, hath tortured it.

How can it be that from one face like thine My own should feel effects so contrary, Since ill comes not from things devoid of ill?

That loveliness perchance doth make me pine, Even as the sun, whose fiery beams we see, Inflames the world, while he is temperate still.

x.x.xVI.

_LOVE MISINTERPRETED._