
23 May Poem 277 (Sonnet dedicated to Giorgio Vasari) [MICHELANGELO]
Though you with line and color excel, securing
for art such laurels as great nature wore,
even better, you’ve gained on her, by making more
beautiful her own beauty for our sake;
and now, with that studious pen in hand, you take
a nobler role, composing, page by page,
works that prove you and nature share the stage,
though you give others survival more enduring.
Yet any age that ever challenged nature
in conjuring beauty was humbled at the close:
what earth aspires to, dwindles to a sigh.
But you rekindle, in every form and feature,
lives lost in time’s dull ash, both yours and those,
assuring them life beyond the death they die.
278 (Proverb)
If leaves aren’t what you’re wanting,
don’t come around in May time.
279 (The octave of an sonnet)
Power of a lovely face impels me where?
Nothing on earth so takes me: pure delight
lofts me among the blessed souls, in flight
body and soul. No other grace so rare!
Created works to their creator bear
close kinship. Can heavenly justice then indict me
if I love, even burn with love? Fair forms invite me
to revere God’s dearest dream embodied there.
The Complete Poems of Michelangelo
Michelangelo
Image: http://www.italianways.com/michelangelos-moses-gods-friend/